<0 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00014804973 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


ENDOWED  BY  THE 

DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 

SOCIETIES 


PS3513 
.L  3^ 
Dk 

c.2 


C 


OCT  1  4  W4j 

FEB  1  1 1975 


The  Deliverance 


BY  THE 

SAME    AUTHOR 

THE 

BATTLE-GROUND 

THE 

FREEMAN,  AND  OTHER  POEMS 

THE 

VOICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

PHASES  OF  AN  INFERIOR  PLANET 

THE 

DESCENDANT 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://archive.org/details/deliveranceromanOOglas 


"  '  Read  yourself — this  once,'  he  pleaded,  'and  let  me  listen.'  " 

See  page  435 


^o  2Dr.  %  ^olftroofc  Cuttte 

With    Appreciation    of    His    Skill    and 
Gratitude    for    His    Sympathy 


4> 


72358S 


CONTENTS 
Book  I.     The  Inheritance 

CHAPTER 

I.  The  Man  in  the  Field 

II.  The  Owner  of  Blake  Hall 

III.  Showing   That    a    Little    Culture    Entail 

Great  Care 

IV.  Of  Human  Nature  in  the  Raw  State 

V.  The  Wreck  of  the  Blakes 

VI.  Carraway  Plays  Courtier  . 

VII.  In  Which  a  Stand  Is  Made     . 

VIII.  Treats  of  a  Passion  That  Is  Not  Love 

IX.  Cynthia     ...... 

X.  Sentimental  and  Otherwise 

Book  II.     The  Temptation 

I.  The  Romance  That  Might  Have  Been 
II.  The  Romance  That  Was 
III.   Fletcher's  Move  and  Christopher's  Counter 

stroke  ..... 

IV.  A  Gallant  Deed  That  Leads  to  Evil 
V.  The  Glimpse  of  a  Bride 
VI.  Shows  Fletcher  in  a  New  Light 
VII.   In  Which  Hero  and  Villain  Appear  as  One 
VIII.   Between  the  Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea 
IX.  As  the  Twig  Is  Bent 
X.  Powers  of  Darkness 


3 
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47 
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75 
87 
97 
109 


125 

J35 

i43 
iSi 

165 

i75 
187 
197 
207 
219 


Lfet  of  Characters 


Christopher  Blake,  a  tobacco-grower 

Mrs.  Blake,  his  mother 

Tucker  Corbin,    an  old  soldier 

Cynthia  and  Lila  Blake,   sisters  of  Christopher 

Carraway,   a  lawyer 

Bill  Fletcher,    a  wealthy  farmer 

Maria  Fletcher,  his  granddaughter 

Will  Fletcher,  his  grandson 

"  Miss    Saidie,"    sister  of  Fletcher 

Jacob  Weatherby,   a  tobacco-grower 

Jim  Weatherby,  his  son 

Sol  Peterkin,    another  tobacco-grower 

Molly  Peterkin,   daughter  of  Sol 

Tom  Spade,  a  country  storekeeper 

Susan,  his  wife 

Uncle  Boaz,  a  Negro 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"'Read  yourself — this  once,'  he  pleaded,  'and 

let  me  listen.'" Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

"In  a  massive  Elizabethan  chair  of  blackened 
oak  a  stately  old  lady  was  sitting  straight 
and  stiff. " 52 

".  .  .  stood,  bareheaded,  gazing  over  the 
broad    field."  ......      168 

".  .  .  waited  for  the  oxen  to  reach  the 
summit  of  the  hill."       .....     342 


BOOK  I 

THE  INHERITANCE 


THE   INHERITANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Man  in  the  Field 

WHEN  the  Tusquehanna  stage  came  to  the 
daily  halt  beneath  the  blasted  pine  at  the 
cross-roads,  an  elderly  man,  wearing  a 
napping  frock  coat  and  a  soft  slouch  hat,  stepped 
gingerly  over  one  of  the  muddy  wheels,  and  threw  a 
doubtful  glance  across  the  level  tobacco  fields,  where 
the  young  plants  were  drooping  in  the  June  sunshine. 

"So  this  is  my  way,  is  it?"  he  asked,  with  a  jerk  of 
his  thumb  toward  a  cloud  of  blue-and-yellow  butter- 
flies drifting  over  a  shining  puddle — "five  miles  as 
the  crow  flies,  and  through  a  bog?  " 

For  a  moment  he  hung  suspended  above  the 
encrusted  axle,  peering  with  blinking  pale-gray  eyes 
over  a  pair  of  gold-rimmed  spectacles.  In  his  appear- 
ance there  was  the  hint  of  a  scholarly  intention 
unfulfilled,  and  his  dress,  despite  its  general  care- 
lessness, bespoke  a  different  standard  of  taste  from 
that  of  the  isolated  dwellers  in  the  surrounding  fields. 
A  casual  observer  might  have  classified  him  as  one  of 
the  Virginian  landowners  impoverished  by  the  war;| 
in  reality,  he  was  a  successful  lawyer  in  a  neighbour- 

3 


4  THE    DELIVERANCE 

ing  town,  who,  amid  the  overthrow  of  the  slave- 
holding  gentry  some  twenty  years  before,  had  risen 
into  a  provincial  prominence. 

His  humour  met  with  a  slow  response  from  the 
driver,  who  sat  playfully  nicking  at  a  horsefly  on  the 
flank  of  a  tall,  raw-boned  sorrel.  "Wall,  thar's  been 
a  sight  of  rain  lately,"  he  observed,  with  good- 
natured  acquiescence,  "but  I  don't  reckon  the  mud's 
■  more'n  waist  deep,  an'  if  you  do  happen  to  git  clean 
down,  thar's  Sol  Peterkin  along  to  pull  you  out. 
Whar're  you  hidin',  Sol?  Why,  bless  my  boots,  if 
he  ain't  gone  fast  asleep  !" 

At  this  a  lean  and  high-featured  matron,  encased 
in  the  rigidity  of  her  Sunday  bombazine,  gave  a  prim 
poke  with  her  umbrella  in  the  ribs  of  a  sparrow-like 
little  man,  with  a  discoloured,  scraggy  beard,  who 
nodded  in  one  corner  of  the  long  seat. 
I  "I'd  wake  up  if  I  was  you,"  she  remarked  in  the 
I    voice  her  sex  assumes  when  virtue  lapses  into  severity. 

Starting  from  his  doze,  the  little  man  straightened 
his  wiry,  sunburned  neck  and  mechanically  raised 
his  hand  to  wipe  away  a  thin  stream  of  tobacco  juice 
which  trickled  from  his  half-open  mouth. 

"Hi!  we  ain't  got  here  a'ready !"  he  exclaimed,  as 
he  spat  energetically  into  the  mud.  "I  d'clar  if  it 
don't  beat  all — one  minute  we're  thar  an'  the  next 
we're  here.  It's  a  movin'  world  we  live  in,  ain't  that 
so,  mum?"  Then,  as  the  severe  matron  still  stared 
unbendingly  before  her,  he  descended  between  the 
wheels,  and  stood  nervously  scraping  his  feet  in  the 
long  grass  by  the  roadside. 

"This  here's  Sol  Peterkin,  Mr.  Carraway,"  said 
the   driver,   bowing   his   introduction   as   he   leaned 

c 


THE   MAN   IN  THE   FIELD  5 

forward  to  disentangle  the  reins  from  the  sorrel's 
tail,  "an'  I  reckon  he  kin  p'int  out  Blake  Hall  to  you 
as  well  as  another,  seein'  as  he  was  under-overseer 
thar  for  eighteen  years  befo'  the  war.  Now  you'd 
better  climb  in  agin,  folks;  it's  time  we  were  off." 

He  gave  an  insinuating  cluck  to  the  horses,  while 
several  passengers,  who  had  alighted  to  gather  black- 
berries from  the  ditch,  scrambled  hurriedly  into  their 
places.  With  a  single  clanking  wrench  the  stage 
rolled  on,  plodding  clumsily  over  the  miry  road. 

As  the  spattering  mud-drops  fell  round  him,  Carra- 
way  lifted  his  head  and  sniffed  the  air  like  a  pointer 
that  has  been  just  turned  afield.  For  the  moment 
his  professional  errand  escaped  him  as  his  chest 
expanded  in  the  light  wind  which  blew  over  the 
radiant  stillness  of  the  Virginian  June.  From  the 
cloudless  sky  to  its  pure  reflection  in  the  rain-washed 
roads  there  was  barely  a  descending  shade,  and  the 
tufts  of  dandelion  blooming  against  the  rotting  rail 
fence   seemed   but   patches   of  the  clearer  sunshine. 

"Bless  my  soul,  it's  like  a  day  out  of  Scripture  !"  he 
exclaimed  in  a  tone  that  was  half-apologetic;  then 
raising  his  walking-stick  he  leisurely  swept  it  into 
space.  "There's  hardly  another  crop,  I  reckon, 
between  here  and  the  Hall?" 

Sol  Peterkin  was  busily  cutting  a  fresh  quid  of 
tobacco  from  the  plug  he  carried  in  his  pocket,  and 
there  was  a  brief  pause  before  he  answered.  Then,  as 
he  carefully  wiped  the  blade  of  his  knife  on  the  leg  of 
his  blue  jean  overalls,  he  looked  up  with  a  curious 
facial  contortion. 

"Oh,  you'll  find  a  corn  field  or  two  somewhar 
along,"  he  replied,  "but  it's  a  lanky,  slipshod  kind  of 


6  THE    DELIVERANCE 

crop  at  best,  for  tobaccy's  king  down  here,  an'  no  mis- 
take. We've  a  sayin'  that  the  man  that  ain't  partial 
to  the  weed  can't  sleep  sound  even  in  the  churchyard, 
an'  thar's  some  as  'ill  swar  to  this  day  that  Willie 
Moreen  never  rested  in  his  grave  because  he  didn't 
chaw,  an'  the  soil  smelt  jest  like  a  plug.  Oh,  it's  a 
great  plant,  I  tell  you,  suh.  Look  over  thar  at  them 
fields;  they've  all  been  set  out  sencethe  spell  o'  rain." 

The  road  they  followed  crawled  like  a  leisurely  river 
between  the  freshly  ploughed  ridges,  where  the  earth 
was  slowly  settling  around  the  transplanted  crop. 
In  the  distance,  labourers  were  still  at  work,  passing 
in  dull-blue  blotches  between  the  rows  of  bright-green 
leaves  that  hung  limply  on  their  slender  stalks. 

"You've  lived  at  the  Hall,  I  hear,"  said  Carraway, 
suddenly  turning  to  look  at  his  companion  over 
his  lowered  glasses. 

"When  it  was  the  Hall,  suh,"  replied  Sol,  with  a 
tinge  of  bitterness  in  his  chuckle.  "Why,  in  my  day, 
an'  that  was  up  to  the  very  close  of  the  war,  you 
might  stand  at  the  big  gate  an'  look  in  any  direction 
you  pleased  till  yo'  eyes  bulged  fit  to  bu'st,  but  you 
couldn't  look  past  the  Blake  land  for  all  yo'  tryin'. 
These  same  fields  here  we're  passin'  through  I've  seen 
set  out  in  Blake  tobaccy  time  an'  agin,  an'  the  farm 
I  live  on  three  miles  beyond  the  Hall  belonged  to 
the  old  gentleman,  God  bless  him !  up  to  the  day  he 
died.  Lord  save  my  soul !  three  hunnard  as  likely 
niggers  as  you  ever  clap  sight  on,  an'  that  not  countin' 
a  good  fifty  that  was  too  far  gone  to  work." 

"All  scattered  now,  I  suppose?" 

"See  them  little  cabins  over  yonder?"  With  a 
dirty  forefinger  he  pointed  to  the  tiny  trails  of  smoke 


THE    MAN   IN   THE   FIELD  7 

hanging  low  above  the  distant  tree-tops.  "The 
county's  right  speckled  with  'em  an'  with  thar  chil- 
dren— all  named  Blake  arter  old  marster,  as  they 
called  him,  or  Corbin  arter  old  miss.  When  leetle 
Mr.  Christopher  got  turned  out  of  the  Hall  jest  befo' 
his  pa  died,  an'  was  shuffled  into  the  house  of  the 
overseer,  whar  Bill  Fletcher  used  to  live  himself, 
the  darkies  all  bought  bits  o'  land  here  an'  thar 
an'  settled  down  to  do  some  farmin'  on  a  free  scale. 
Stuck  up,  suh !  Why,  Zebbadee  Blake  passed  mej 
yestiddy  drivin'  his  own  mule-team,  an'  I  heard 
him  swar  he  wouldn't  turn  out  o'  the  road  for  any- 
body less'n  God  A'mighty  or  Marse  Christopher  !" 

"A — ahem!"  exclaimed  Carraway,  with  relish; 
"and  in  the  meantime,  the  heir  to  all  this  high-handed 
authority  is  no  better  than  an  illiterate  day-labourer." 

Peterkin  snorted.  "Who?  Mr.  Christopher ?  Well, 
he  warn't  more'n  ten  years  old  when  his  pa  went 
doty  an'  died,  an'  I  don't  reckon  he's  had  much 
larnin'  sence.  I've  leant  on  the  gate  myself 
an'  watched  the  nigger  children  traipsin'  by  to  the 
Yankee  woman's  school,  an'  he  drivin'  the  plough 
when  he  didn't  reach  much  higher  than  the  handle. 
He  used  to  be  the  darndest  leetle  brat,  too,  till  his 
sperits  got  all  freezed  out  o'  him.  Lord  !  Lord  !  thar's 
such  a  sight  of  meanness  in  this  here  world  that  it 
makes  a  body  b'lieve  in  Providence  whether  or  no." 

Carraway  meditatively  twirled  his  walking-stick. 
"Raises  tobacco  now  like  the  rest,  doesn't  he?" 

"Not  like  the  rest — bless  you,  no,  suh.  Why, 
the  weed  thrives  under  his  very  touch,  though  he 
can't  abide  the  smell  of  it,  an'  thar's  not  a  farmer 
in  the  county  that  wouldn't  rather  have  him  to  plant, 


8  THE   DELIVERANCE 

cut,  or  cure  than  any  ten  men  round  about.  They  do 
say  that  his  pa  went  clean  crazy  about  tobaccy  jest 
befo'  he  died,  an'  that  Mr.  Christopher  gets  dead 
sick  when  he  smells  it  smokin'  in  the  barn,  but  he 
kin  pick  up  a  leaf  blindfold  an'  tell  you  the  quality 
of  it  at  his  first  touch." 

For  a  moment  the  lawyer  was  silent,  pondering  a 
thought  he  evidently  did  not  care  to  utter.  When 
at  last  he  spoke  it  was  in  the  measured  tones  of  one 
who  overcomes  an  impediment  in  his  speech. 

"Do  you  happen  to  have  heard,  I  wonder,  any- 
thing of  his  attitude  toward  the  present  owner  of 
the   Hall?" 

"Happen  to  have  heard  !"  Peterkin  threw  back  his 
head  and  gasped.  "Why,  the  whole  county  has 
happened  to  hear  of  it,  I  reckon.  It's  been  common 
talk  sence  the  day  he  got  his  first  bird-gun,  an'  his 
nigger,  Uncle  Boaz,  found  him  hidin'  in  the  bushes  to 
shoot  old  Fletcher  when  he  came  in  sight.  I  tell  you, 
if  Bill  Fletcher  lay  dyin'  in  the  road,  Mr.  Christopher 
would  sooner  ride  right  over  him  than  not.  You 
ask  some  folks,  suh,  an'  they'll  tell  you  a  Blake  kin 
hate  twice  as  long  as  most  men  kin  love." 

"Ah,  is  it  so  bad  as  that  ?"  muttered  Carraway. 

"Well,  he  ain't  much  of  a  Christian,  as  the  lights 
go,"  continued  Sol,  "but  I  ain't  sartain,  accordin'  to 
my  way  of  thinkin',  that  he  ain't  got  a  better  sho win' 
on  his  side  than  a  good  many  of  'em  that  gits  thar 
befo'  the  preacher.  He's  a  Blake,  skin  an'  bone, 
anyhow,  an'  you  ain't  goin'  to  git  this  here  county 
to  go  agin  him — not  if  he  was  to  turn  an'  spit  at 
Satin  himself.  Old  Bill  Fletcher  stole  his  house  an' 
his  land  an'  his  money,  law  or  no  law — that's  how  I 


THE   MAN    IN   THE    FIELD  9 

look  at  it — but  he  couldn't  steal  his  name,  an'  that's 
what  counts  among  the  niggers,  an'  the  po'  whites, 
too.  Why,  I've  seen  a  whole  parcel  o'  darkies  stand 
stock  still  when  Fletcher  drove  up  to  the  bars  with 
his  spankin'  pair  of  bays,  an'  then  mos'  break  thar 
necks  lettin'  'em  down  as  soon  as  Mr.  Christopher 
comes  along  with  his  team  of  oxen.  You  kin  fool  the 
quality  'bout  the  quality,  but  I'll  be  blamned  if  you 
kin  fool  the  niggers." 

Ahead  of  them  there  was  a  scattered  group  of  log 
cabins,  surrounded  by  little  whitewashed  palings, 
and  at  their  approach  a  decrepit  old  Negro,  followed 
by  a  slinking  black-and-tan  foxhound,  came  beneath 
the  straggling  hopvine  over  one  of  the  doors  and 
through  the  open  gate  out  into  the  road.  His  bent 
old  figure  was  huddled  within  his  carefully  patched 
clothes  of  coarse  brown  homespun. 

"Howdy,  marsters,"  he  muttered,  in  answer  to  the 
lawyer's  greeting,  raising  a  trembling  hand  to  his 
wrinkled  forehead.  "Y'all  ain'  seen  nuttin'  er  ole 
miss's  yaller  cat,  Beulah,  I  reckon  ?" 

Peterkin,  who  had  eyed  him  with  the  peculiar 
disfavour  felt  for  the  black  man  by  the  low-born 
white,  evinced  a  sudden  interest  out  of  all  proportion 
to  Carraway's  conception  of  the  loss. 

"Ain't  she  done  come  back  yet,  Uncle  Boaz?"he 
inquired. 

"Naw,  suh,  dat  she  aint,  en  ole  miss  she  ain'  gwine 
git  a  wink  er  sleep  dis  blessed  night.  Me  en  Spy  we 
is  done  been  traipsin'  roun'  atter  dat  ar  low-lifeted 
Beulah  sence  befo'  de  dinner-bell." 

"When  did  you  miss  her  first?"  asked  Peterkin, 
with  concern. 


io  THE    DELIVERANCE 

"I  dunno,  suh,  dat  I  don't,  caze  she  ain'  no  better'n 
one  er  dese  yer  wish-wishys  *  an'  I  ain'  mek  out  yit 
ef'n  twuz  her  er  her  hant.  Las'  night  'bout  sundown 
dar  she  wuz  a-lappin'  her  sasser  er  milk  right  at  ole 
miss  feet,  en  dis  mawnin'  at  sunup  dar  she  warn't. 
Dat's  all  I  know,  suh,  ef'n  you  lay  me  out." 

"Well,  I  reckon  she'll  turn  up  agin,"  said  Peterkin 
consolingly.  "Cats  air  jest  like  gals,  anyway — they 
ain't  never  happy  unless  they're  eternally  gaily vantin'. 
Why,  that  big  white  Tom  of  mine  knows  more  about 
this  here  county  than  I  do  myself." 

"Dat's  so,  suh;  dat's  de  gospel  trufe;  but  I'se  kinder 
flustered  'bout  dat  yaller  cat  caze  ole  miss  sutney  do 
set  a  heap  er  sto'  by  'er.  She  ain'  never  let  de  dawgs 
come  in  de  'oom,  nohow,  caze  once  she  done  feel 
Beulah  rar  'er  back  at  Spy.  She's  des  stone  blin',  is 
ole  miss,  but  I  d'clar  she  kin  smell  pow'ful  keen,  an' 
'tain'  no  use  tryin'  ter  fool  her  wid  one  houn'  er  de 
hull  pack.  Lawd  !  Lawd  !  I  wunner  ef  dat  ar  cat  kin 
be  layin'  close  over  yonder  at  Sis  Daphne's  ?" 

He  branched  off  into  a  little  path  which  ran  like  a 
white  thread  across  the  field,  grumbling  querulously 
to  the  black-and-tan  foxhound  that  ambled  at  his 
heels. 

"Dar's  a  wallopin'  ahaid  er  you,  sho's  you  bo'n," 
he  muttered,  as  he  limped  on  toward  a  small  log  hut 
from  which  floated  an  inviting  fragrance  of  bacon 
frying  in  fat.  "I  reckon  you  lay  dat  you  kin  cut 
yo'  mulatter  capers  wid  me  all  you  please,  but  you'd 
better  look  out  sharp  'fo'  you  begin  foolin'  'long  er 
Marse  Christopher.     Dar  you  go  agin,  now.     Ain'  dat 


*  Will-o'-the-wisp. 


THE    MAN    IN    THE    FIELD  n 

des  like  you?  Wat  you  wanter  go  sickin'  atter  dat 
ole  hyar  fer,  anyhow?" 

"So  that  is  one  of  young  Blake's  hangers-on?" 
observed  Carraway,  with  a  slight  inflection  of  inquiry. 

"Uncle   Boaz,   you  mean?     Oh,   he   was  the   old 

gentleman's  body-servant  befo'  the  war.      He  used 

to  wear  his  marster's  cast-off  ruffles    an'   high   hat. 

A  mighty  likely  nigger  he  was,  too,  till  he  got  all  bent 

vp  with  the  rheumatics." 

The  lawyer  had  lifted  his  walking-stick  and  was 
pointing  straight  ahead  to  a  group  of  old  brick 
chimneys  huddled  in  the  sunset  above  a  grove  of 
giant  oaks. 

"That  must  be  Blake  Hall  over  there,"  he  said; 
"there's  not  another  house  like  it  in  the  three 
counties." 

"We'll  be  at  the  big  gate  in  a  minute,  suh,"  Peterkin 
returned.  "This  is  the  first  view  of  the  Hall  you  git, 
an'  they  say  the  old  gentleman  used  to  raise  his  hat 
whenever  he  passed  by  it."  Then  as  they  swung  open 
the  great  iron  gate,  with  its  new  coat  of  red,  he 
touched  Carraway's  sleeve  and  spoke  in  a  hoarse 
whisper.  "Thar's  Mr.  Christopher  himself  over 
yonder,"  he  said,  "an'  Lord  bless  my  soul,  if  he  ain't 
settin'  out  old  Fletcher's  plants.  Thar  !  he's  standin' 
up  now — the  big  young  fellow  with  the  basket.  The 
old  gentleman  was  the  biggest  man  twixt  here  an' 
Fredericksburg,  but  I  d'clar  Mr.  Christopher  is  a  good 
half -head  taller !" 

At  his  words  Carraway  stopped  short  in  the  road, 
raising  his  useless  glasses  upon  his  brow.  The  sun 
had  just  gone  down  in  a  blaze  of  light,  and  the  great 
bare   field  was   slowly   darkening   against   the   west. 


i2  THE    DELIVERANCE 

Nearer  at  hand  there  were  the  long  road,  already  in 
twilight,  the  rail  fence  wrapped  in  creepers,  and  a 
solitary  chestnut  tree  in  full  bloom.  Farther  away 
swept  the  freshly  ploughed  ground  over  which  passed 
the  moving  figures  of  the  labourers  transplanting  the 
young  crop.  Of  them  all,  Carraway  saw  but  a  single 
worker — in  reality,  only  one  among  the  daily  toilers 
in  the  field,  moulded  physically  perhaps  in  a  finer 
shape  than  they,  and  limned  in  the  lawyer's  mental 
vision  against  a  century  of  the  brilliant  if  tragic  history 
of  his  race.  As  he  moved  slowly  along  between  the 
even  rows,  dropping  from  time  to  time  a  plant  into 
one  of  the  small  holes  dug  before  him,  and  pausing 
with  the  basket  on  his  arm  to  settle  the  earth  care- 
fully with  his  foot,  he  seemed,  indeed,  as  much  the 
product  of  the  soil  upon  which  he  stood  as  did  the 
great  white  chestnut  growing  beside  the  road.  In 
his  pose,  in  his  walk,  in  the  careless  carriage  of 
his  head,  there  was  something  of  the  large  freedom 
of  the  elements. 
i  "A  dangerous  young  giant,"  observed  the  lawyer 
slowly,  letting  his  glasses  fall  before  his  eyes.  "A 
monumental  Blake,  as  it  were.  Well,  as  I  have 
remarked  before  upon  occasions,  blood  will  tell,  even 
at  the  dregs." 

"He's  the  very  spit  of  his  pa,  that's  so,"  replied 
Peterkin,  "an'  though  it's  no  business  of  mine,  I'm 
afeared  he's  got  the  old  gentleman's  dry  throat  along 
with  it.  Lord  !  Lord  !  I've  always  stood  it  out  that 
it's  better  to  water  yo'  mouth  with  tobaccy  than  to 
burn  it  up  with  sperits."  He  checked  himself 
and  fell  back  hastily,  for  young  Blake,  after  a 
single   glance  at  the    west,  had    tossed    his    basket 


THE    MAN    IN    THE    FIELD  13 

carelessly  aside,  and  was  striding  vigorously  across 
the  field. 

"Not  another  plant  will  I  set  out,  and  that's  an 
end  of  it !"  he  was  saying  angrily.  "I  agreed  to  do 
a  day's  work  and  I've  been  at  it  steadily  since  sun- 
rise. Is  it  any  concern  of  mine,  I'd  like  to  know,  if 
he  can't  put  in  his  crop  to-night  ?  Do  you  think  I 
care  whether  his  tobacco  rots  in  the  ground  or 
out  of  it  ?" 

As  he  came  on,  Carraway  measured  him  coolly, 
with  an  appreciation  tempered  by  his  native  sense  of 
humour.  He  perceived  at  once  a  certain  coarseness 
of  finish  which,  despite  the  deep-rooted  veneration 
for  an  idle  ancestry,  is  found  most  often  in  the 
descendants  of  a  long  line  of  generous  livers.  A 
moment  later  he  weighed  the  keen  gray  flash  of  the 
eyes  beneath  the  thick  fair  hair,  the  coating  of  dust  and 
sweat  over  the  high-bred  curve  from  brow  to  nose, 
and  the  fulness  of  the  jaw  which  bore  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  sheer  brutality  upon  the  general  impression  of 
a  fine  racial  type.  Taken  from  the  mouth  up,  the 
face  might  have  passed  as  a  pure,  fleshly  copy  of  the 
antique  idea;  seen  downward,  it  became  almost 
repelling  in  its  massive  power. 

Stooping  beside  the  fence  for  a  common  harvest  hat, 
the  young  man  placed  it  on  his  head,  and  gave  a 
careless  nod  to  Peterkin.  He  had  thrown  one  leg 
over  the  rails,  and  was  about  to  swing  himself  into 
the  road,  when  Sol  spoke  a  little  timidly. 

"I  hear  yo'  ma's  done  lost  her  yaller  cat,  Mr. 
Christopher." 

For  an  instant  Christopher  hung  midway  of  the 
fence. 


r4  THE    DELIVERANCE 

"Isn't  the  beast  back  yet?"  he  asked  irritably, 
scraping  the  mud  from  his  boot  upon  the  rail.  "I've 
had  Uncle  Boaz  scouring  the  county  half  the  day." 

A  pack  of  hounds  that  had  been  sleeping  under 
the  sassafras  bushes  across  the  road  came  fawning 
to  his  feet,  and  he  pushed  them  impatiently  aside. 

"I  was  thinkin',"  began  Peterkin,  with  an  uncer- 
tain cough,  "that  I  might  manage  to  send  over  my 
big  white  Tom,  an',  bein'  blind,  maybe  she  wouldn't 
know  the  difference." 

Christopher  shook  his  head. 

"Oh,  it's  no  use,"  he  replied,  speaking  with  an  air 
of  superiority.  "She  could  pick  out  that  cat  among 
a  million,  I  believe,  with  a  single  touch.  Well, 
there's  no  help  for  it.  Down,  Spot — down,  I  say, 
sir!" 

With  a  leisurely  movement  he  swung  himself  from 
the  fence,  stopping  to  wipe  his  brow  with  his  blue 
cotton  sleeve.  Then  he  went  whistling  defiantly 
down  the  way  to  the  Hall,  turning  at  last  into  a  sunken 
road  that  trailed  by  an  abandoned  ice-pond  where 
bullfrogs  were  croaking  hoarsely  in  the  rushes. 


tf 


CHAPTER   II 

The  Owner  of  Blake  Hall 

As  they  followed  the  descending  road  between 
flowering  chestnuts,  Blake  Hall  rose  gradually  into 
fuller  view,  its  great  oaks  browned  by  the  approach- 
ing twilight  and  the  fading  after-glow  reflected  in 
a  single  visible  pane.  Seen  close  at  hand,  the  house 
presented  a  cheerful  spaciousness  of  front — a  surety 
of  light  and  air — produced  in  part  by  the  clean  white 
Doric  columns  of  the  portico  and  in  part  by  the 
ample  slope  of  shaven  lawn  studded  with  beds  of 
brightly  blooming  flowers.  From  the  smoking  chim- 
neys presiding  over  the  ancient  roof  to  the  hospitable 
steps  leading  from  the  box-bordered  walk  below,  the 
outward  form  of  the  dwelling  spoke  to  the  imagina- 
tive mind  of  that  inner  spirit  which  had  moulded  it 
into  a  lasting  expression  of  a  racial  sentiment,  as  if 
the  Virginia  creeper  covering  the  old  brick  walls  had 
wreathed  them  in  memories  as  tenacious  as  itself. 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years  Blake  Hall  had 
stood  as  the  one  great  house  in  the  county — a  mani- 
festation in  brick  and  mortar  of  the  hereditary  great- 
ness of  the  Blakes.  To  Carraway,  impersonal  as  his 
interest  was,  the  acknowledgment  brought  a  sudden 
vague  resentment,  and  for  an  instant  he  bit  his  lip  and 
hung  irresolute,  as  if  more  than  half-inclined  to  retrace 
his  steps.     A  slight  thing  decided  him — the  gaiety  of  a 

i5 


i6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

boy's  laugh  that  floated  from  one  of  the  lower  rooms 
— and  swinging  his  stick  briskly  to  add  weight  to  his 
determination,  he  ascended  the  broad  steps  and  lifted 
the  old  brass  knocker.  A  moment  later  the  door 
was  opened  by  a  large  mulatto  woman,  in  a  soiled 
apron,  who  took  his  small  hand-bag  from  him  and, 
when  he  asked  for  Mr.  Fletcher,  led  him  across  the 
great  hall  into  the  unused  drawing-room. 

The  shutters  were  closed,  and  as  she  flung  them 
back  on  their  rusty  hinges  the  pale  June  twilight 
entered  with  the  breath  of  mycrophylla  roses.  In 
the  scented  dusk  Carraway  stared  about  the  desolate, 
crudely  furnished  room,  which  gave  back  to  his 
troubled  fancy  the  face  of  a  pitiable,  dishonoured 
corpse.  The  soul  of  it  was  gone  forever — that 
peculiar  spirit  of  place  which  makes  every  old  house 
the  guardian  of  an  inner  life — the  keeper  of  a  family's 
ghost.  What  remained  was  but  the  outer  husk,  the 
disfigured  frame,  upon  which  the  newer  imprint 
seemed  only  a  passing  insult. 

On  the  high  wainscoted  walls  he  could  still  trace 
the  vacant  dust-marked  squares  where  the  Blake 
portraits  had  once  hung — lines  that  the  successive, 
scrubbings  of  fifteen  years  had  not  utterly  effaced. 
A  massive  mahogany  sofa,  carved  to  represent  a 
horn  of  plenty,  had  been  purchased,  perhaps  at  a 
general  sale  of  the  old  furniture,  with  several  quaint 
rosewood  chairs  and  a  rare  cabinet  of  inlaid  woods. 
For  the  rest,  the  later  additions  were  uniformly 
cheap  and  ill-chosen — a  blue  plush  "set,"  bought, 
possibly,  at  a  village  store,  a  walnut  table  with  a 
sallow  marble  top,  and  several  hard  engravings  of 
historic  subjects. 


THE   OWNER    OF   BLAKE    HALL  17 

When  the  lawyer  turned  from  a  curious  inspection 
of  these  works  of  art,  he  saw  that  only  a  curtain  of 
flimsy  chintz,  stretched  between  a  pair  of  fluted 
columns,  separated  him  from  the  adjoining  room, 
where  a  lamp,  with  lowered  wick,  was  burning  under 
a  bright  red  shade.  After  a  moment's  hesitation 
he  drew  the  curtain  aside  and  entered  what  he 
took  at  once  to  be  the  common  living-room  of  the 
Fletcher  family. 

Here  the  effect  was  less  depressing,  though  equally 
uninteresting — a  paper  novel  or  two  on  the  big 
Bible  upon  the  table  combined,  indeed,  with  a 
costly  piano  in  one  corner,  to  strike  a  note  that  was 
entirely  modern.  The  white  crocheted  tidies  on  the 
chair-backs,  elaborated  with  endless  patience  out  of 
innumerable  spools  of  darning  cotton,  lent  a  feminine 
touch  to  the  furniture,  which  for  an  instant  dis- 
tracted Carraway's  mental  vision  from  the  impending  -. \. 
personality  of  Fletcher  himself.  He  remembered 
now  that  there  was  a  sister  whom  he  had  heard 
vaguely  described  by  the  women  of  his  family  as 
"quite  too  hopeless,"  and  a  granddaughter  of  whom 
he  knew  merely  that  she  had  for  years  attended  an 
expensive  school  somewhere  in  the  North.  The 
grandson  he  recalled,  after  a  moment,  more  distinctly, 
as  a  pretty,  undeveloped  boy  in  white  pinafores,  who 
had  once  accompanied  Fletcher  upon  a  hurried  visit 
to  the  town.  The  gay  laugh  had  awakened  the 
incident  in  his  mind,  and  he  saw  again  the  little 
cleanly  clad  figure  perched  upon  his  desk,  nibbling 
bakers'  buns,  while  he  transacted  a  tedious  piece  of 
business  with  the  vulgar  grandfather. 

He  was  toying  impatiently  with  these  recollections 


18  THE    DELIVERANCE 

when  his  attention  was  momentarily  attracted  by  the 
sound  of  Fletcher's  burly  tones  on  the  rear  porch 
just  beyond  the  open  window. 

,  "I  tell  you,  you've  set  all  the  niggers  agin  me, 
and  I  can't  get  hands  to  work  the  crops." 

"That's  your  lookout,  of  course,"  replied  a  voice, 
which  he  associated  at  once  with  young  Blake.  "I 
told  you  I'd  work  three  days  because  I  wanted  the 
ready  money;  I've  got  it,  and  my  time  is  my  own 
again." 

"But  I  say  my  tobacco's  got  to  get  into  the  ground 
this  week — it's  too  big  for  the  plant-bed  a'ready, 
and  with  three  days  of  this  sun  the  earth'll  be  dried 
as  hard  as  a  rock." 

"There's  no  doubt  of  it,  I  think." 

"And  it's  all  your  blamed  fault,"  burst  out  the 
other  angrily;  "you've  gone  and  turned  them  all 
agin  me — white  and  black  alike.  Why,  it's  as 
much  as  I  can  do  to  get  a  stroke  of  honest  labour  in 
this  nigger- ridden  country." 

Christopher  laughed  shortly. 

"There  is  no  use  blaming  the  Negroes,"  he  said, 
and  his  pronunciation  of  the  single  wxoid  would  have 
stamped  him  in  Virginia  as  of  a  different  class  from 
Fletcher;  "they're  usually  ready  enough  to  work  if 
you  treat  them  decently." 

"Treat  them!"  began  Fletcher,  and  Carraway 
was  about  to  fling  open  the  shutters,  when  light  steps 
passed  quickly  along  the  hall  and  he  heard  the  rustle 
of  a  woman's  silk  dress  against  the  wainscoting. 

"There's  a  stranger  to  see  you,  grandfather,"  called 
a  girl's  even  voice  from  the  house;  "finish  paying 
off  the  hands  and  come  in  at  once." 


THE    OWNER    OF    BLAKE    HALL         19 

"Well,  of  all  the  impudence  !"  exclaimed  the  young 
man,  with  a  saving  dash  of  humour.  Then,  without 
so  much  as  a  parting  word,  he  ran  quickly  down  the 
steps  and  started  rapidly  in  the  direction  of  the 
darkening  road,  while  the  silk  dress  rustled  upon  the 
porch  and  at  the  garden  gate  as  the  latch  was  lifted. 

"Go  in,  grandfather  !"  called  the  girl's  voice  from 
the  garden,  to  which  Fletcher  responded  as  decisively. 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  let  me  manage  my  own 
affairs,  Maria.  You  seem  to  have  inherited  your 
poor  mother's  pesky  habit   of  meddling." 

"Well,  I  told  you  a  gentleman  was  waiting,"  re- 
turned the  girl  stubbornly.  "You  didn't  let  us  know 
he  was  coming,  either,  and  Lindy  says  there  isn't  a 
thing  fit  to  eat  for  supper." 

Fletcher  snorted,  and  then,  .before  entering  the 
house,  stopped  to  haggle  with  an  old  Negro  woman 
for  a  pair  of  spring  chickens  hanging  dejectedly  from 
her  outstretched  hand,  their  feet  tied  together  with 
a  strip  of  faded  calico. 

"How  much  you  gwine  gimme  fer  dese,  marster?" 
she  inquired  anxiously,  deftly  twirling  them  about' 
until  they  swung  with  heads  aloft. 

Rising  to  the  huckster's  instinct,  Fletcher  poked 
the  offerings  suspiciously  beneath  their  flapping 
wings. 

"Thirty  cents  for  the  pair — not  a  copper  more," 
he  responded  promptly;  "they're  as  poor  as  Job's 
turkey,  both  of  'em." 

"Lawdy,  marster,  you  know  better'n  dat." 

"They're  skin  and  bones,  I  tell  you;  feel  'em  your- 
self. Well,  take  it  or  leave  it,  thirty  cents  is  all  I'll 
give." 


20  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Go  'way  f'om  yere,  suh;  dese  yer  chickings  ain'  no 
po'  w'ite  trash — dey's  been  riz  on  de  bes'  er  de  Ian', 
dey  is— en  de  aigs  dey  wuz  hatched  right  dar  in  de 
middle  er  de  baid  whar  me  en  my  ole  man  en  de 
chillun  sleep.  De  hull  time  dat  black  hen  wuz  a-settin', 
Cephus  he  was  bleeged  ter  lay  right  spang  on  de  bar' 
flo'  caze  we'uz  afeared  de  aigs  'ould  addle.  Lawd ! 
Lawd !  dey  wuz  plum  three  weeks  a-hatchin',  en  de 
weather  des  freeze  thoo  en  thoo.  Cephus  he's  been 
crippled  up  wid  de  rheumatics  ever  sence.  Go  'way 
f'om  yer,  marster.  I  warn't  bo'n  yestiddy.  Thirty 
cents !" 

"Not  a  copper  more,  I  tell  you.  Let  me  go,  my 
good  woman;   I  can't  stand  here  all  night." 

"Des  a  minute,  marster.  Dese  yer  chickings  ain' 
never  sot  dey  feet  on  de  yearth,  caze  dey's  been  riz 
right  in  de  cabin,  en  dey's  done  et  dar  vittles  outer  de 
same  plate  wid  me  en  Cephus.  Ef'n  dey  spy  a  chice 
bit  er  bacon  on  de  een  er  de  knife  hit  'uz  moughty 
likely  ter  fin'  hits  way  down  dir  throat  instid  er 
down  me  en  Cephus'." 

"Let  me  go,  I  say — I  don't  want  your  blamed 
chickens;   take  'em  home  again." 

"Hi!  marster,  I'se  Mehitable.  You  ain't  fergot 
how  peart  I  use  ter  wuk  w'en  you  wuz  over  me  in  ole 
marster's  day.  You  know  you  ain'  fergot  Mehitable, 
suh.  Ain't  you  recollect  de  time  ole  marster  gimme 
a  dollar  wid  his  own  han'  caze  I  foun'  de  biggest 
wum  in  de  hull  'baccy  patch  ?  Lawd  !  dey  wuz  times, 
sho's  you  bo'n.  I  kin  see  ole  marster  now  es  plain 
es  ef  twuz  yestiddy,  so  big  en  shiny  like  satin,  wid 
his  skin  des  es  tight  es  a  watermillion's." 

"Shut  up,  confound  you!"  cut  in  Fletcher  sharply. 


THE  OWNER  OF  BLAKE  HALL  21 

"If  you  don't  stop  your  chatter  I'll  set  the  dogs  on 
you.     Shut  up,  I  say  !" 

He  strode  into  the  house,  slamming  the  heavy 
door  behind  him,  and  a  moment  afterward  Carraway 
heard  him  scolding  brutally  at  the  servants  across 
the  hall. 

The  old  Negress  had  gone  muttering  from  the 
porch  with  her  unsold  chickens,  when  the  door 
softly  opened  again,  and  the  girl,  who  had  entered 
through  the  front  with  her  basket  of  flowers,  came 
out  into  the  growing  moonlight. 

"Wait  a  moment,  Aunt  Mehitable,"  she  said.  "I 
want  to  speak  to  you." 

Aunt  Mehitable  turned  slowly,  putting  a  feeble 
hand  to  her  dazed  eyes.  "You  ain'  ole  miss  come 
back  agin,  is  you,  honey?"  she  questioned  doubtfully. 

"I  don't  know  who  your  old  miss  was,"  replied 
the  girl,  "but  I  am  not  she,  whoever  she  may  have 
been.  I  am  Maria  Fletcher.  You  don't  remember 
me — yet  you  used  to  bake  me  ash-cakes  when  I  was 
a  little  girl." 

The  old  woman  shook  her  head.  "You  ain'  Marse 
Fletcher's  chile?" 

"His  granddaughter — but  I  must  go  in  to  supper. 
Here  is  the  money  for  your  chickens — grandpa  was 
only  joking;  you  know  he  loves  to  joke.  Take  the 
chickens  to  the  hen-house  and  get  something  hot  to 
eat  in  the  kitchen  before  you  start  out  again." 

She  ran  hurriedly  up  the  steps  and  entered  the 
hall  just  as  Fletcher  was  shaking  hands  with  his 
guest. 


CHAPTER  III 

Showing  That  a  Little  Culture  Entails  Great 
Care 

Carraway  had  risen  to  meet  his  host  in  a  flutter 
that  was  almost  one  of  dread.  In  the  eight  years 
since  their  last  interview  it  seemed  to  him  that  his 
mental  image  of  his  great  client  had  magnified  in  pro- 
portions— that  Fletcher  had  "out-Fletchered"  himself, 
as  he  felt  inclined  to  put  it.  The  old  betrayal  of  his 
employer's  dependence,  which  at  first  had  been 
merely  a  suspicion  in  the  lawyer's  mind,  had  begun 
gradually,  as  time  went  on,  to  bristle  with  the  points 
of  significant  details.  In  looking  back,  half-hinted 
things  became  clear  to  him  at  last,  and  he  gathered, 
bit  by  bit,  the  whole  clever,  hopeless  villainy  of  the 
scheme — the  crime  hedged  about  by  law  with  all  the 
prating  protection  of  a  virtue.  He  knew  now  that 
Fletcher — the  old  overseer  of  the  Blake  slaves — had 
defrauded  the  innocent  as  surely  as  if  he  had  plunged 
his  great  red  fist  into  the  little  pocket  of  a  child — 
had  defrauded,  indeed,  with  so  strong  a  blow  that  the 
very  consciousness  of  his  victim  had  been  stunned. 
There  had  been  "about  his  act  all  the  damning  hypoc- 
risy of  a  great  theft — all  the  air  of  stern  morality 
which  makes  for  the  popular  triumph  of  the  heroic 
swindler. 

23 


24  THE  DELIVERANCE 

These  things  Carraway  understood,  yet  as  the  man 
strode  into  the  room  with  open  palm  and  a  general 
air  of  bluff  hospitality — as  if  he  had  just  been  blown 
by  some  fresh  strong  wind  across  his  tobacco  fields — 
the  lawyer  experienced  a  relief  so  great  that  the  breath 
he  drew  seemed  a  fit  measure  of  his  earlier  fore- 
boding. For  Fletcher  outwardly  was  but  the  com- 
mon type  of  farmer,  after  all,  with  a  trifle  more 
intelligence,  perhaps,  than  is  met  with  in  the  average 
Southerner  of  his  class.  "A  plain  man  but  honest, 
sir,"  was  what  one  expected  him  to  utter  at  every 
turn.  It  was  written  in  the  coarse  open  lines  of  his 
face,  half -hidden  by  a  bushy  gray  beard;  in  his  small 
sparkling  eyes,  now  blue,  now  brown;  in  his  loose- 
limbed,  shambling  movements  as  he  crossed  the  room. 
His  very  clothes  spoke,  to  an  acute  observer,  of  a 
masculine  sincerity  naked  and  unashamed — as  if  his 
large  coffee-spotted  cravat  would  not  alter  the 
smallest  fold  to  conceal  the  stains  it  bore.  Hale, 
hairy,  vehement,  not  without  a  quality  of  Rabelaisian 
humour,  he  appeared  the  last  of  all  men  with 
whom  one  would  associate  the  burden  of  a  troubled 
conscience. 

"Sorry  to  have  kept  you — on  my  word  I  am,"  he 
began  heartily;  "but  to  tell  the  truth,  I  thought 
thar'd  be  somebody  in  the  house  with  sense  enough 
to  show  you  to  a  bedroom.  Like  to  run  up  now  for 
a  wash  before  supper?" 

It  was  what  one  expected  of  him,  such  a  speech 
blurted  in  so  offhand  a  manner,  and  the  lawyer  could 
barely  suppress  a  threatening  laugh. 

"Oh,  it  was  a  short  trip,"  he  returned,  "and  a 
walk  of  five  miles  on  a  day  like  this  is  one  of  the 


CULTURE   ENTAILS  CARE  25 

most  delightful  things  in  life.  I've  been  looking 
out  at  your  garden,  by  the  way,  and — I  may  as 
well  confess  it — overhearing  a  little  of  your  con- 
versation." 

"Is  that  so?"  chuckled  Fletcher,  his  great  eyebrows 
overhanging  his  eyes  like  a  mustache  grown  out  of 
place.  "Well,  you  didn't  hear  anything  to  tickle 
your  ears,  I  reckon.  I've  been  having  a  row 
with  that  cantankerous  fool,  Blake.  The  queer 
thing  about  these  people  is  that  they  seem  to  think 
I'm  to  blame  every  time  they  see  a  spot  on 
their  tablecloths.  Mark  my  words,  it  ain't  been  two 
years  since  I  found  that  nigger  Boaz  digging  in  my 
asparagus  bed,  and  he  told  me  he  was  looking  for 
some  shoots  for  ole  miss's  dinner." 

"The  property  idea  is  very  strong  in  these  rural 
counties,  you  see,"  remarked  the  lawyer  gravely. 
"They  feel  that  every  year  adds  a  value  to  the  heredi- 
tary possession  of  land,  and  that  when  an  estate  has 
borne  a  single  name  for  a  century  there  has  been  a 
veritable  impress  placed  upon  it.  Your  asparagus 
bed  is  merely  an  item;  you  find,  I  fancy,  other  in- 
stances." 

Fletcher  turned  in  his  chair. 

"That's  the  whole  blamed  rotten  truth,"  he  admit- 
ted, waving  his  great  red  hand  toward  the  door; 
"but  let's  have  supper  first  and  settle  down  to  talk  on 
a  full  stomach.  Thar's  no  hurry  with  all  night 
before  us,  and  that,  to  come  to  facts,  is  why  I  sent 
for  you.  No  lawyer's  office  for  me  when  I  want  to 
talk  business,  but  an  easy-chair  by  my  own  table  and 
a  cup  of  coffee  beforehand." 

As  he  finished,  a  bell  jangled  in  the  hall,  and  the 


26  THE  DELIVERANCE 

door  opened  to  admit  the  girl  whom  Carraway  had 
seen  a  little  earlier  upon  the  porch. 

"Supper's  a  good  hour  late,  Maria,"  grumbled 
Fletcher,  looking  at  his  heavy  silver  watch,  "and  I 
smelt  the  bacon  frying  at  six  o'clock." 

For  an  instant  the  girl  looked  as  if  she  had  more 
than  half  an  intention  to  slap  his  face;  then  quickly 
recovering  her  self-possession,  she  smiled  at  Carraway 
and  held  out  a  small  white  hand  with  an  air  of 
quiet  elegance  which  was  the  most  noticeable  thing 
in  her  appearance. 

"I  am  quite  a  stranger  to  you,  Mr.  Carraway," 
she  said,  with  a  laugh,  "but  if  you  had  only  known  it, 
I  had  a  doll  named  after  you  when  I  was  very  small. 
Guy  Carraway  ! — it  seemed  to  me  all  that  was  needed 
to  make  a  fairy  tale." 

The  lawyer  joined  in  her  laugh,  which  never  rose 
above  a  carefully  modulated  minor.  "I  confess  that 
I  once  took  the  same  view  of  it,  my  dear  young 
lady,"  he  returned,  "so  I  ended  by  dropping  the  name 
and  keeping  only  the  initial.  Your  grandfather 
will  tell  you  that  I  am  now  G.  Carraway  and  nothing 
more.  I  couldn't  afford,  as  things  were,  to  make  a 
fairy  tale  of  my  life,  you  see." 

"Oh,  if  one  only  could  !"  said  the  girl,  lowering  her 
full  dark  eyes,  which  gave  a  piteous  lie  to  her  sullen 
mouth. 

She  was  artificial,  Carraway  told  himself  with 
emphasis,  and  yet  the  distinction  of  manner — the 
elegance — was  certainly  the  point  at  which  her  train- 
ing had  not  failed.  He  felt  it  in  her  tall,  straight 
figure,  absurdly  overdressed  for  a  granddaughter  of 
Fletcher's;   in   her   smooth  white   hands,  with  their 


CULTURE  ENTAILS  CARE  27 

finely  polished  nails;  in  her  pale,  repressed  face,  which 
he  called  plain  while  admitting  that  it  might  become 
interesting;  in  her  shapely  head  even  with  its  heavy 
cable  of  coal-black  hair.  What  she  was  her  education 
had  made  of  her — the  look  of  serene  distinction,  the 
repose  of  her  thin-featured,  colourless  face,  refined 
beyond  the  point  of  prettiness — these  things  her 
training  had  given  her,  and  these  were  the  things 
which  Carraway,  with  his  old-fashioned  loyalty  to  a 
strong  class  prejudice,  found  himself  almost  resenting. 
Bill  Fletcher's  granddaughter  had,  he  felt,  no  right 
to  this  rare  security  of  breeding  which  revealed 
itself  in  every  graceful  fold  of  the  dress  she  wore,  for 
with  Fletcher  an  honest  man  she  would  have  been, 
perhaps,  but  one  of  the  sallow,  over-driven  drudges 
who  stare  like  helpless  effigies  from  the  little  tumbled- 
down  cabins  along  country  roadsides. 

Fletcher,  meanwhile,  had  filled  in  the  pause  with 
one  of  his  sudden  burly  dashes  into  speech. 

"Maria  has  been  so  long  at  her  high-and-mighty 
boarding-school,"  he  said,  "that  I  reckon  her  head's 
as  full  of  fancies  as  a  cheese  is  of  maggots.  She's 
even  got  a  notion  that  she  wants  to  turn  out  all 
this  new  stuff — to  haul  the  old  rubbish  back  again — 
but  I  say  wait  till  the  boy  comes  on — then  we'll  see, 
we'll  see." 

"And  in  the  meantime  we'll  go  in  to  supper,"  put 
in  the  girl  with  a  kind  of  hopeless  patience,  though 
Carraway  could  see  that  she  smarted  as  from  a  blow. 
"This  is  Will,  Mr.  Carraway,"  sne  added  almost 
gaily,  skilfully  sweeping  her  train  from  about  the 
feet  of  a  pretty,  undersized  boy  of  fourteen  years, 
who  had  burst  into  the  room  with  his  mouth  full  of 


28  THE  DELIVERANCE 

bread  and  jam.  "He's  quite  the  pride  of  the  family, 
you  know,  because  he's  just  taken  all  the  honours  of 
his  school." 

"History,  'rithmatic,  Latin — all  the  languages," 
rolled  out  Fletcher  in  a  voice  that  sounded  like  a 
tattoo.  "I  can't  keep  up  with  'em,  but  they're  all 
thar,  ain't  they,  sonny?" 

"Oh,  you  could  never  say  'em  off  straight,  grandpa," 
retorted  the  boy,  with  the  pertness  of  a  spoiled  girl, 
at  which,  to  Carraway's  surprise,  Fletcher  fairly 
chuckled  with  delight. 

"That's  so;  I'm  a  plain  man,  the  Lord  knows," 
he  admitted,  his  coarse  face  crinkling  like  a  sun- 
dried  leaf  of  tobacco. 

"We've  got  chickens  for  supper — broiled,"  the 
boy  chattered  on,  putting  out  his  tongue  at  his 
sister;  "that's  why  Lindy's  havin'  it  an  hour  late — ■ 
she's  been  picking  'em,  with  Aunt  Mehitable  helping 
her  for  the  feathers.  Now  don't  shake  your  head  at 
me,  Maria,  because  it's  no  use  pretending  we  have  'em 
every  night,  like  old  Mrs.  Blake." 

"Bless  my  soul!"  gasped  Fletcher,  nettled  by  the 
last  remark.  "Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  those  Blakes 
are  fools  enough  to  eat  spring  chicken  when  they  could 
get  forty  cents  apiece  for  'em  in  the  open  market?" 

"The  old  lady  does,"  corrected  the  boy  glibly. 
"The  one  who  wears  the  queer  lace  cap  and  sits  in  the 
big  chair  by  the  hearth  all  day — and  all  night,  too, 
Tommy  Spade  says,  'cause  he  peeped  through  once  at 
midnight  and  she  was  still  there,  sitting  so  stiff  that 
it  scared  him  and  he  ran  away.  Well,  Aunt  Mehitable 
sold  her  a  dozen,  and  she  got  a  side  of  bacon  and  a 
bag  of  meal." 


CULTURE  ENTAILS  CARE  29 

"Grandfather,  you've  forgotten  Aunt  Saidie," 
broke  in  Maria,  as  Fletcher  was, about  to  begin  his 
grace  without  waiting  for  a  dumpy  little  woman,  in 
purple  calico,  who  waddled  with  an  embarrassed 
air  from  her  hasty  preparations  in  the  pantry.  At 
first  Carraway  had  mistaken  her  for  an  upper  serv- 
ant, but  as  she  came  forward  Maria  laid  her  hand 
playfully  upon  her  arm  and  introduced  her  with  a 
sad  little  gaiety  of  manner.  "I  believe  she  has  met 
one  of  your  sisters  in  Fredericksburg,"  she  added, 
after  a  moment.  Clearly  she  had  determined  to 
accept  the  family  in  the  lump,  with  a  resolution  that 
— had  it  borne  less  resemblance  to  a  passive  rage — 
could  not  have  failed  to  glorify  a  nobler  martyrdom. 
It  was  not  affection  that  fortified  her — beyond  her 
first  gently  tolerant  glance  at  the  boy  there  had  been 
only  indifference  in  her  pale,  composed  face — and 
the  lawyer  was  at  last  brought  to  the  surprising 
conclusion  that  Fletcher's  granddaughter  was  seek- 
ing to  build  herself  a  fetish  of  the  mere  idle  bond  of 
blood.  The  hopeless  gallantry  of  the  girl  moved  him 
to  a  vague  feeling  of  pity,  and  he  spoke  presently 
with  a  chivalrous  desire  of  making  her  failure  easy. 

"It  was  Susan,  I  think,"  he  said  pleasantly,  shaking 
hands  with  the  squat  little  figure  in  front  of  him, 
"I  remember  her  speaking  of  it  afterward." 

"I  met  her  at  a  church  festival  one  Christmas 
Eve,"  responded  Aunt  Saidie,  in  a  high-pitched, 
rasping  voice.  "The  same  evening  that  I  got  this 
pink  crochetted  nuby."  She  touched  a  small 
pointed  shawl  about  her  shoulders.  "Miss  Belinda 
Beale  worked  it  and  it  was  raffled  off  for  ten  cents 
a  chance." 


3o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Her  large,  plump  face,  overflushed  about  the  nose, 
had  a  natural  kindliness  of  expression  which  Carraway 
found  almost  appealing;  and  he  concluded  that  as  a 
girl  she  might  have  possessed  a  common  prettiness 
of  feature.  Above  her  clear  blue  eyes  a  widening 
parting  divided  her  tightly  crimped  bands  of  hair, 
which  still  showed  a  bright  chestnut  tint  in  the  gray 
ripples. 

"Thar,  thar,  Saidie,"  Fletcher  interrupted  with  a 
frank  brutality,  which  the  laywer  found  more  repelling 
than  the  memory  of  his  stolen  fortune.  "Mr.  Carra- 
way doesn't  want  to  hear  about  your  fascinator. 
He'd  a  long  ways  rather  have  you  make  his  coffee." 

The  little  woman  flushed  purple  and  drew  back 
her  chair  with  an  ugly  noise  from  the  head  of  the 
lavishly  spread  table. 

"Set  down  right  thar,  suh,"  she  stammered,  her 
poor  little  pretense  of  ease  gone  from  her,  "right  thar 
between  Brother  Bill  and  me." 

"You  did  say  it,  Aunt  Saidie,  I  told  you  you 
would,"  screamed  the  pert  boy,  beginning  an  assault 
upon  an  enormous  dish  of  batterbread. 

Maria  flinched  visibly.  "Be  silent,  Will,"  she 
ordered.  "Grandfather,  you  must  really  make  Will 
learn  to  be  polite." 

"Now,  now,  Maria,  you're  too  hard  on  us,"  pro- 
tested Fletcher,  flinging  himself  bodily  into  the 
breach,  "boys  will  be  boys,  you  know — they  warn't 
born  gals." 

"But  she  did  say  it,  Maria,"  insisted  the  boy,  "and 
she  bet  me  a  whole  dish  of  doughnuts  she  wouldn't. 
She  did  say  'set';  I  heard  her."  Maria  bjt  her  lip, 
and  her  flashing  eyes  filled  with  angry  tears,  while 


CULTURE  ENTAILS  CARE  31 

Carraway,  as  he  began  talking  hurriedly  about  the 
promise  of  tobacco,  resisted  valiantly  an  impulse  to 
kick  the  pretty  boy  beneath  the  table.  As  his  eyes 
travelled  about  the  fine  old  room,  marking  its  mellow 
wainscoting  and  the  whitened  silver  handles  on  the 
heavy  doors,  he  found  himself  wondering  with  im- 
placable approval  if  this  might  not  be  the  beginning 
of  a  great  atonement. 

The  boy's  mood  had  varied  at  the  sight  of  his 
sister's  tears,  and  he  fell  to  patting  penitently  the 
hand  that  quivered  on  the  table.  "You  needn't 
give  me  the  doughnuts,  Aunt  Saidie ;  I'll  make  believe 
you  didn't  say  it,"  he  whispered  at  last. 

"Do  you  take  sugar,  Mr.  Carraway?"  asked  Miss 
Saidie,  flushed  and  tremulous  at  the  head  of  the 
overcrowded  table,  with  its  massive  modern  silver 
service.  Poor  little  woman,  thought  the  lawyer, 
with  his  first  positive  feeling  of  sympathy,  she  would 
have  been  happier  frying  her  own  bacon  amid  bounc- 
ing children  in  a  labourer's  cabin.  He  leaned  toward 
her,  speaking  with  a  grave  courtesy,  which  she  met 
with  the  frightened,  questioning  eyes  of  a  child. 
She  was  "quite  too  hopeless,"  he  reluctantly  admitted 
— yet,  despite  himself,  he  felt  a  sudden  stir  of  honest 
human  tenderness — the  tenderness  he  had  certainly 
not  felt  for  Fletcher,  nor  for  the  pretty,  pert  boy,  nor 
even  for  the  elegant  Maria  herself. 

"I  was  looking  out  at  the  dear  old  garden  awhile 
ago,"  he  said,  "and  I  gathered  from  it  that  you  must 
be  fond  of  flowers — since  your  niece  tells  me  she 
has  been  away  so  long." 

She  brightened  into  animation,  her  broad,  capable 
hands  fumbling  with  the  big  green-and-gold  teacups. 


32  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Yes,  I  raise  'em,"  she  answered.  "Did  you  happen 
to  notice  the  bed  of  heartsease?  I  worked  every 
inch  of  that  myself  last  spring — and  now  I'm  planting 
zinnias,  and  touch-me-nots,  and  sweet-williams — 
they'll  all  come  along  later." 

"And  prince's-feather,"  added  the  lawyer,  reminis- 
cently;  "that  used  to  be  a  favourite  of  mine,  I 
remember,  when  I  was  a  country  lad." 

"I've  got  a  whole  border  of  'em  out  at  the  back — 
large,  fine  plants,  too — but  Maria  wants  to  root  'em 
up.  She  says  they're  vulgar  because  they  grow  in  all 
the  niggers'  yards." 

"Vulgar!"  So  this  was  the  measure  of  Maria, 
Carraway  told  himself,  as  he  fell  into  his  pleasant 
ridicule.  "Why,  if  God  Almighty  ever  created  a 
vulgar  flower,  my  dear  young  lady,  I  have  yet  to 
see  it." 

"But  don't  you  think  it  just  a  little  gaudy 
for  a  lawn,"  suggested  the  girl,  easily  stung  to  the 
defensive. 

"It  looks  cheerful  and  I  like  it,"  insisted  Aunt 
Saidie,  emboldened  by  a  rare  feeling  of  support. 
"Ma  used  to  have  two  big  green  tubs  of  it  on  either 
side  the  front  door  when  we  were  children,  and  we 
used  to  stick  it  in  our  hats  and  play  we  was  real  fine 
folks.     Don't  you  recollect  it,  Brother  Bill?" 

"Good  Lord,  Saidie,  the  things  you  do  recollect !" 
exclaimed  Fletcher,  who,  beneath  the  agonised  eyes 
of  Maria,  was  drinking  his  coffee  from  his  saucer  in 
great  spluttering  gulps. 

The  girl  was  in  absolute  torture:  this  Carraway 
saw  in  the  white,  strained,  nervous  intensity  of  her 
look;  yet  the  knowledge  served  only  to  irritate  him,  so 


CULTURE   ENTAILS  CARE  33 

futile  appeared  any  attempt  to  soften  the  effect  of 
Fletcher's  grossness.  Before  the  man's  colossal 
vulgarity  of  soul,  mere  brutishness  of  manner  seemed 
but  a  trifling  phase. 


CHAPTER  IV 
Of   Human  Nature  in  the  Raw  State 

When  at  last  the  pickles  and  preserved  water- 
melon rind  had  been  presented  with  a  finishing  flourish, 
and  Carraway  had  successfully  resisted  Miss  Saidie's 
final  passionate  insistence  in  the  matter  of  the  big 
blackberry  roll  before  her,  Fletcher  noisily  pushed 
back  his  chair,  and,  with  a  careless  jerk  of  his  thumb 
in  the  direction  of  his  guest,  stamped  across  the  hall 
into  the  family  sitting-room. 

"Now  we'll  make  ourselves  easy  and  fall  to  thresh- 
ing things  out,"  he  remarked,  filling  a  blackened 
brier-root  pipe,  into  the  bowl  of  which  he  packed 
the  tobacco  with  his  stubby  forefinger.  "Yes,  I'm 
a  lover  of  the  weed,  you  see — don't  you  smoke  or 
chaw,  suh?" 

Carraway  shook  his  head.  "When  I  was  young 
and  wanted  to  I  couldn't,"  he  explained,  "and  now 
that  I  am  old  and  can  I  have  unfortunately  ceased  to 
want  to.  I've  passed  the  time  of  life  when  a  man 
begins  a  habit  merely  for  the  sake  of  its  being  a 
habit." 

"Well,  I  reckon  you're  wise  as  things  go,  though 
for  my  part  I  believe  I  took  to  the  weed  before  I  did 
to  my  mother's  breact.  I  cut  my  first  tooth  on  a  plug, 
she  used  to  say." 

35 


36  THE  DELIVERANCE 

He  threw  himself  into  a  capacious  cretonne-covered 
chair,  and,  kicking  his  carpet  slippers  from  him,  sat 
swinging  one  massive  foot  in  its  gray  yarn  sock. 
Through  the  thickening  smoke  Carraway  watched  the 
complacency  settle  over  his  great  hairy  face. 

"And  now,  to  begin  with  the  beginning,  what  do 
you  think  of  my  grandchildren?"  he  demanded 
abruptly,  taking  his  pipe  from  his  mouth  after  a  long, 
sucking  breath,  and  leaning  forward  with  his  elbow 
on  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

The  other  hesitated.  "You've  done  well  by  them, 
I  should  say." 

"A  fine  pair,  eh?" 

"The  admission  is  easy." 

"Look  at  the  gal,  now,"  burst  out  Fletcher  impul- 
sively. "Would  you  fancy,  to  see  her  stepping  by, 
that  her  grandfather  used  to  crack  the  whip  over  a 
lot  of  dirty  niggers?"  He  drove  the  fact  in  squarely 
with  big,  sure  blows  of  his  fist,  surveying  it  with  an 
enthusiasm  the  other  found  amazing.  "Would  you 
fancy,  even,"  he  continued  after  a  moment,  "that  her 
father  warn't  as  good  as  I  am — that  he  left  overseeing 
to  jine  the  army,  and  came  out  to  turn  blacksmith  if 
I  hadn't  kept  him  till  he  drank  himself  to  death? 
His  wife?  Why,  the  woman  couldn't  read  her  own 
name  unless  you  printed  it  in  letters  as  long  as  your 
finger — and  now  jest  turn  and  look  at  Maria!"  he 
wound  up  in  a  puff  of  smoke. 

"The  girl's  wonderful,"  admitted  Carraway.  "She's 
like  a  dressed-up  doll-baby,  too;  all  the  natural  thing 
has  been  squeezed  out  of  her,  and  she's  stuffed  with 
sawdust." 

"It's  a  pity  she  ain't  a  little  better  looking  in  the 


HUMAN  NATURE  IN  THE  RAW  STATE     37 

face,"  pursued  Fletcher,  waving  the  criticism  aside. 
"She's  a  plagued  sight  too  pale  and  squinched-up  for 
my  taste— for  all  her  fine  air.  I  like  'em  red  and 
juicy,  and  though  you  won't  believe  me,  most  likely 
she  can't  hold  a  tallow  candle  to  what  Saidie  was 
when  she  was  young.  But  then,  Saidie  never  had 
her  chance,  and  Maria's  had  'em  doubled  over. 
Why,  she  left  home  as  soon  as  she'd  done  sucking,  and 
she  hasn't  spent  a  single  summer  here  since  she  was 
eight  years  old.  Small  thanks  I'll  get  for  it,  I  reckon, 
but  I've  done  a  fair  turn  by  Maria " 

"The  boy  comes  next,  I  suppose?"  Carraway 
broke  in,  watching  the  other's  face  broaden  into  a 
big,  purple  smile. 

"Ah,  thar  you're  right — it's  the  boy  I've  got  my 
eye  on  now.  His  name's  the  same  as  mine,  you  know, 
and  I  reckon  one  day  William  Fletcher  '11  make  his 
mark  among  the  quality.  He'll  have  it  all,  too — the 
house,  the  land,  everything,  except  a  share  of  the 
money  which  goes  to  the  gal.  It'll  make  her  child- 
bearing  easier,  I  reckon,  and  for  my  part,  that's  the 
only  thing  a  woman's  fit  for.  Don't  talk  to  me  about 
a  childless  woman !  Why,  I'd  as  soon  keep  a  cow 
that  wouldn't  calve " 

"You  were  speaking  of  the  boy,  I  believe,"  coolly 
interrupted  Carraway.  To  a  man  of  his  old-fashioned 
chivalric  ideal  the  brutal  allusion  to  the  girl  was  like  a 
deliberate  blow  in  the  face. 

"So  I  was — so  I  was.  Well,  he's  to  have  it  all,  I 
say — every  mite,  and  welcome.  live  had  a  pretty 
tough  life  in  my  time — you  can  tell  it  from  my  hands, 
suh — but  I  ain't  begrudging  it  if  it  leaves  the  boy  a 
bit  better  off.     Lord,  thar's  many  and  many  a  night, 


38  THE  DELIVERANCE 

when  I  was  little  and  my  stepfather  kicked  me  out  of 
doors  without  a  bite,  that  I  used  to  steal  into  some- 
body or  other's  cow-shed  and  snuggle  for  warmth 
into  the  straw — yes,  and  suck  the  udders  of  the  cows 
for  food,  too.  Oh,  I've  had  a  hard  enough  life,  for 
all  the  way  it  looks  now — and  I'm  not  saying  that  if 
the  choice  was  mine  I'd  go  over  it  agin  even  as  it 
stands  to-day.  We're  set  here  for  better  or  for 
worse,  that's  my  way  of  thinking,  and  if  thar's  any 
harm  comes  of  it  Providence  has  got  to  take  a  share 
of  the  blame." 

"Hardly  the  preacher's  view  of  the  matter,  is  it  ?" 

"Maybe  not;  and  I  ain't  got  a  quarrel  with  'em, 
the  Lord  knows.  I  go  to  church  like  clockwork, 
and  pay  my  pew-rent,  too,  which  is  more  than  some 
do  that  gabble  the  most  about  salvation.  If  I  pay  for 
the  preacher's  keep  it's  only  fair  that  I  should  get 
some  of  the  good  that  comes  to  him  hereafter;  that's 
how  it  looks  to  me;  so  I  don't  trouble  my  head  much 
about  the  ins  and  the  outs  of  getting  saved  or  damned. 
I've  never  puled  in  this  world,  thank  God,  and  let 
come  what  will,  I  ain't  going  to  begin  puling  in  the 
next.  But  to  go  back  to  whar  I  started  from,  it  all 
makes  in  the  end  for  that  pretty  little  chap  over 
yonder  in  the  dining-room.  Rather  puny  for  his 
years  now,  but  as  sound  as  a  nut,  and  he'll  grow — 
he'll  grow.  When  his  mother — poor,  worthless  drab 
— gave  birth  to  him  and  died,  I  told  her  it  was  the 
best  day's  work  she'd  ever  done." 

Carraway's  humour  rippled  over.  "It's  easy  to 
imagine  what  her  answer  must  have  been  to  such  a 
pleasantry,"  he  observed. 

"Oh,  she  was  a  fool,  that  woman — a  born  fool ! 


oADStfloim  ,   (Ap        ,  : 

HUMAN  NATURE  IN  THE  RAW  STATE     39 

Her  answer  was  that  it  would  be  the  best  day  for 
her  only  when  I  came  to  call  it  the  worst.  She 
hated  me  a  long  sight  more  than  she  hated  the  devil, 
and  if  she  was  to  rise  out  of  her  grave  to-day  she'd 
probably  start  right  in  scrubbing  for  those  darned 
Blakes." 

"Ah!"  said  Carraway. 

"It's  the  plain  truth,  but  I  don't  visit  it  on  the 
little  lad.  Why  should  I  ?  He's  got  my  name — I  saw 
to  that — and  mark  my  word,  he'll  grow  up  yet  to 
marry  among  the  quality." 

The  secret  was  out  at  last — Fletcher's  purpose  was 
disclosed,  and  even  in  the  strong  light  of  his  past 
misdeeds  it  showed  not  without  a  hint  of  pathos. 
The  very  renouncement  of  any  personal  ambition 
served  to  invest  the  racial  one  with  a  kind  of  grandeur. 

"There's  evidently  an  enviable  career  before  him," 
said  the  lawyer  at  the  end  of  a  long  pause,  "and  this 
brings  me,  by  the  way,  to  the  question  I  wish  to  ask 
— had  your  desire  to  see  me  any  connection  with  the 
prospects  of  your  grandson?" 

"In  a  way,  yes;  though,  to  tell  the  truth,  it  has 
more  to  do  with  that  young  Blake's.  He's  been 
bothering  me  a  good  deal  of  late,  and  I  mean  to  have 
it  square  with  him  before  Bill  Fletcher's  a  year 
older." 

"No  difficulty  about  your  title  to  the  estate,  I 
presume?" 

"Oh,  Lord,  no;  that's  all  fair  and  square,  suh.  I 
bought  the  place,  you  know,  when  it  went  at  auction 
jest  a  few  years  after  the  war.  I  bought  and  paid 
for  it  right  down,  and  that  settled  things  for  good 
and  all.'" 


4o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Carraway  considered  the  fact  for  a  moment.  "If 
I  remember  correctly — I  mean  unless  gossip  went  very 
far  afield — the  place  brought  exactly  seven  thousand 
dollars."  His  gaze  plunged  into  the  moonlight 
beyond  the  open  window  and  followed  the  clear 
sweep  of  the  distant  fields.  "Seven  thousand  dol- 
lars," he  added  softly;  "and  there's  not  a  finer  in 
Virginia." 

"Thar  was  nobody  to  bid  agin  me,  you  see," 
explained  Fletcher  easily.  "The  old  gentleman  was 
.as  poor  as  Job's  turkey  then,  besides  going  doty 
mighty  fast." 

"The  common  report  was,  I  believe,"  pursued  the 
lawyer,  "that  the  old  man  himself  did  not  know  of 
the  place  being  for  sale  until  he  heard  the  auctioneer's 
hammer  on  the  lawn,  and  that  his  mind  left  him  from 
the  moment — this  was,  of  course,  mere  idle  talk." 

"Oh,  you'll  hear  anything,"  snorted  Fletcher. 
"The  old  gentleman  hadn't  a  red  copper  to  his  name, 
and  if  he  couldn't  pay  the  mortgages,  how  under 
heaven  could  he  have  bought  in  the  place?  As  a 
plain  man  I  put  the  question." 

"But  his  friends?  Where  were  his  friends,  I 
wonder  ?  In  his  youth  he  was  one  of  the  most  popu- 
lar men  in  the  State — a  high  liver  and  good  toaster, 
you  remember — and  later  on  he  stood  well  in  the 
Confederate  Government.  That  he  should  have 
fallen  into  abject  poverty  seems  really  incompre- 
hensible." 

Fletcher  twisted  in  his  chair.  "Why,  that  was  jest 
three  years  after  the  war,  I  tell  you,"  he  said  with 
irritable  emphasis;  "he  hadn't  a  friend  this  side  of 
Jordan,  I  reckon,  who  could  have  raised  fifty  cents 


HUMAN  NATURE  IN  THE  RAW  STATE   41 

to  save  his  soul.     The  quality  were   as  bad  off  as 
thar  own  niggers." 

"True — true,"  admitted  Carraway;  "but  the  sur- 
prising thing  is — I  don't  hesitate  to  say — that  you  who 
had  been  overseer  to  the  Blakes  for  twenty  years 
should  have  been  able  in  those  destitute  times  and 
on  the  spot,  as  it  were,  to  put  down  seven  thousand 
dollars." 

He  faced  the  fact  unflinchingly,  dragging  it  from 
the  long  obscurity  full  into  the  red  glare  of  the  lamp- 
light. Here  was  the  main  thing,  he  knew,  in  Fle^che.rl§ 
history — here  was  the  supreme  offense.  For  twenty 
years  the  man  had  been  the  trusted  servant  of  his 
feeble  employer,  and  when  the  final  crash  came  he  had 
risen  with  full  hands  from  the  wreck.  The  prodigal 
Blakes— burning  the  candle  at  both  ends,  people 
said — had  squandered  a  double  fortune  before  the 
war,  and  in  an  equally  stupendous  fashion  Fletcher 
had  amassed  one. 

"Oh,  thar're  ways  and  ways  of  putting  by  a  penny," 
he  now  protested,  "and  I  turned  over  a  bit  during  the 
war,  I  may  as  well  own  up,  though  folks  had  only 
black  looks  for  speculators  then." 

"We  used  to  call  them  'bloodsuckers,'  I  remember." 

"Well,  that's  neither  here  nor  thar,  suh.  When 
the  place  went  for  seven  thousand  I  paid  it  down,  and 
I've  managed  one  way  and  another — and  in  spite  of 
the  pesky  niggers — to  make  a  pretty  bit  out  of  the 
tobacco  crop,  hard  as  times  have  been.  The  Hall 
is  mine  now,  thar's  no  going  agin  that,  and,  so  help 
me  God,  it'll  belong  to  a  William  Fletcher  long  after 
I  am  dead." 

"Ah,  that  brings  us  directly  to  the  point." 


42     -  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Fletcher  squared  himself  about  in  his  chair  while 
his  pipe  went  out  slowly. 

"The  point,  if  you'll  have  it  straight,"  he  said, 
"is  jest  this — I  want  the  whole  place — every  inch  of 
it — and  I'll  die  or  git  it,  as  sure's  my  name's  my  own. 
Thar's  still  that  old  frame  house  and  the  piece  of  land 
tacked  to  it,  whar  the  overseers  used  to  live,  cutting 
straight  into  the  heart  of  my  tobacco  fields — in 
clear  view  of  the  Hall,  too — right  in  the  middle  of 
my  land,  I  tell  you  !" 

"Oh,  I  see — I  see,"  muttered  Carraway;  "that's 
the  little  farm  in  the  midst  of  the  estate  which  the  old 
gentleman — bless  his  weak  head  and  strong  heart — 
gave  his  wife's  brother,  Colonel  Corbin,  who  came 
back  crippled  from  the  war.  Yes,  I  remember  now, 
there  was  a  joke  at  the  time  about  his  saying  that 
land  was  the  cheapest  present  he  could  give." 

"It  was  all  his  besotted  foolishness,  you  know — 
to  think  of  a  sane  man  deeding  away  seventy  acres 
right  in  the  heart  of  his  tract  of  two  thousand.  He 
meant  it  for  a  joke,  of  course.  Mr.  Tucker  or  Colonel 
Corbin,  if  you  choose,  was  like  one  of  the  family,  but 
he  was  as  sensitive  as  a  kid  about  his  wounds,  and  he 
wanted  to  live  off  somewhar,  shut  up  by  himself. 
Well,  he's  got  enough  folks  about  him  now,  the  Lord 
knows.  Thar's  the  old  lady,  and  the  two  gals,  and 
Mr.  Christopher,  to  say  nothing  of  Uncle  Boaz  and  a 
whole  troop  of  worthless  niggers  that  are  eating  him 
out  of  house  and  home.  Tom  Spade  has  a  deed  of 
trust  on  the  place  for  three  hundred  dollars;  he  told 
me  so  himself." 

"So  I  understand;  and  all  this  is  a  serious  incon- 
venience to  you,  I  may  suppose." 


HUMAN  NATURE  IN  THE  RAW  STATE    43 

"Inconvenience!  Blood  and  thunder!  It  takes 
the  heart  right  out  of  my  land,  I  tell  you.  Why, 
the  very  road  I  cut  to  save  myself  half  a  mile  of  mud- 
holes  came  to  a  dead  stop  because  Mr.  Christopher 
wouldn't  let  it  cross  his  blamed  pasture." 

Carraway  thoughtfully  regarded  his  finger  nails. 
"Then,  bless  my  soul! — seeing  it's  your  private 
affair — what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?"  he 
inquired. 

"Git  it.  The  devil  knows  how — I  don't;  but  git 
it  I  will.  I  brought  you  down  here  to  talk  those 
fools  over,  and  I  mean  you  to  do  it.  It's  all  spite — 
pure,  rotten  spite;  that's  what  it  is.  Look  here, 
I'll  gladly  give  'em  three  thousand  dollars  for  that 
strip  of  land,  and  it  wouldn't  bring  nine  hundred,  on 
my  oath !" 

"Have  you  made  the  offer?" 

"Made  it?  Why,  if  I  set  foot  on  the  tip  edge  of 
that  land  I'd  have  every  lean  hound  in  the  pack 
snapping  at  my  heels.  As  for  that  young  rascal,  he'd 
knock  me  down  if  I  so  much  as  scented  the  matter." 

He  rapped  his  pipe  sharply  on  the  wood  of  his 
chair  and  a  little  pile  of  ashes  settled  upon  the  floor. 
With  a  laugh,  the  other  waved  his  hand  in  protest. 

"So  you  prefer  to  make  the  proposition  by  proxy. 
My  dear  sir — I'm  not  a  rubber  ball." 

"Oh,  he  won't  hurt  you.  It  would  spoil  the  sport 
to  punch  anybody's  head  but  mine,  you  know. 
Come,  now,  isn't  it  a  fair  offer  I'm  making?" 

"It  appears  so,  certainly — and  I  really  do  not 
see  why  he  should  wish  to  hold  the  place.  It  isn't 
worth  much,  I  fancy,  to  anybody  but  the  owner  of 
the  Hall,  and  with  the  three  thousand  clear  he  could 


44  THE  DELIVERANCE 

probably  get  a  much  better  one  at  a  little  distance 
— with  the  additional  value  of  putting  a  few  square 
miles  between  himself  and  you — whom,  I  may  pre- 
sume, he  doesn't  love." 

"Oh,  you  may  presume  he  hates  me  if  you'll 
only  work  it,"  snorted  Fletcher.  "Go  over  thar 
boldly — no  slinking,  mind  you — to-morrow  morning, 
and  talk  them  into  reason.  Lord,  man,  you  ought  to 
be  able  to  do  it — don't  you  know  Greek?" 

Carraway  nodded.  "Not  that  it  ever  availed  me 
much  in  an  argument,"  he  confessed  frankly. 

"It's  a  good  thing  to  stop  a  mouth  with,  any- 
way. Thar's  many  and  many  a  time,  I  tell  you, 
I've  lost  a  bargain  for  the  lack  of  a  few  rags  of  Latin 
or  Greek.  Drag  it  in;  stuff  it  down  'em;  gag  thar 
mouths — it's  better  than  all  the  swearing  under 
heaven.  Why,  taking  the  Lord's  name  in  vain  ain't 
nothing  to  a  line  of  poetry  spurted  of  a  sudden  in  one 
of  them  dead-and-gone  languages.  It's  been  done  at 
me,  suh,  and  I  know  how  it  works — that's  why  I've 
put  the  boy  upstairs  on  'em  from  the  start.  'Tain't 
much  matter  whether  he  goes  far  in  his  own  tongue  or 
not,  that's  what  I  said,  but  dose  him  well  with  some- 
thing his  neighbours  haven't  learnt." 

He  rose  with  a  lurch,  laid  his  pipe  on  the  mantel, 
and  drew  out  his  big  silver  watch. 

"Great  Jehosaphat !  it's  eleven  and  after,"  he 
exclaimed.  "Well,  it's  time  for  us  to  turn  in,  I 
reckon,  and  dream  of  breakfast.  If  you'll  hold 
the  lamp  while  I  bolt  up,  I'll  show  you  to  your 
room." 

Carraway  picked  up  the  lamp,  and,  cautiously 
following   his    host    into   the    darkened   hall,    waited 


HUMAN  NATURE  IN  THE  RAW  STATE  45 

until  he  had  fastened  the  night-chains  and  shot  the 
heavy  bolts. 

"If  you  want  a  drink  of  water  thar's  a  bucket  in 
the  porch,"  said  Fletcher,  as  he  opened  the  back 
door  and  reached  out  into  the  moonlight.  "Wait 
thar  a  second  and  I'll  hand  you  the  dipper." 

He  stepped  out  upon  the  porch,  and  a  moment 
later  Carraway  heard  a  heavy  stumble  followed  by  a 
muttered  oath. 

"Why,  blast  the  varmints  !  I've  upset  the  boy's 
cage  of  white  mice  and  they're  skedaddling  about 
my  legs.  Here!  hold  the  lamp,  will  you — I'm  squash- 
ing a  couple  of  'em  under  each  of  my  hands." 

Carraway,  leaning  out  with  the  lamp,  which  drew 
a  brilliant  circle  on  the  porch,  saw  Fletcher  flounder- 
ing helplessly  upon  his  hands  and  knees  in  the  midst 
of  the  fleeing  family  of  mice. 

"They're  a  plagued  mess  of  beasts,  that's  what 
they  are,"  he  exclaimed,  "but  the  little  lad  sets  a 
heap  of  store  by  'em,  and  when  he  comes  down  to- 
morrow he'll  find  that  I  got  some  of  'em  back,  any- 
way." 

He  fastened  the  cage  and  placed  it  carefully  beneath 
the  bench.  Then,  closing  and  bolting  the  door,  he 
took  the  lamp  from  Carraway  and  motioned  him  up 
the  dusky  staircase  to  the  spare  chamber  at  the  top. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Wreck  of  the  Blakes 

When  Christopher  left  Blake  Hall,  he  swung 
vigorously  in  the  twilight  across  the  newly  ploughed 
fields,  until,  at  the  end  of  a  few  minutes'  walk,  he 
reached  the  sunken  road  that  branched  off  by  the 
abandoned  ice-pond.  Here  the  bullfrogs  were  still 
croaking  hoarsely,  and  far  away  over  the  gray-green 
rushes  a  dim  moon  was  mounting  the  steep  slope 
of  bluish  sky. 

The  air  was  fresh  with  the  scent  of  the  upturned 
earth,  and  the  closing  day  refined  into  a  tranquil 
beauty;  but  the  young  man,  as  he  passed  briskly, 
did  not  so  much  as  draw  a  lengthened  breath,  and 
when  presently  the  cry  of  a  whip-poor-will  floated 
from  the  old  rail  fence,  he  fell  into  a  whistling  mockery 
of  the  plaintive  notes.  The  dogs  at  his  heels 
started  a  rabbit  once  from  the  close  cover  of  the 
underbrush,  and  he  called  them  to  order  in  a  sharp, 
peremptory  tone.  Not  until  he  reached  the  long, 
whitewashed  gate  opening  before  the  frame  house 
of  the  former  overseers  did  he  break  the  easy  swing 
of  his  accustomed  stride. 

The  house,  a  common  country  dwelling  of  the  sort 
used  by  the  poorer  class  of  farmers,  lost  something  of 
its  angularity  beneath  the  moonlight,  and  even  the 

47 


48  THE  DELIVERANCE 

half-dried  garments,  spread  after  the  day's  washing 
on  the  bent  old  rose-bushes,  shone  in  soft  white  patches 
amid  the  grass,  which  looked  thick  and  fine  under 
;the  heavy  dew.  In  one  corner  of  the  yard  there  was 
a  spreading  peach-tree,  on  which  the  shrivelled 
little  peaches  ripened  out  of  season,  and  against  the 
narrow  porch  sprawled  a  gray  and  crippled  aspen, 
where  a  flock  of  turkeys  had  settled  to  roost  along 
its  twisted  boughs. 

In  one  of  the  lower  rooms  a  lamp  was  burning,  and 
as  Christopher  crunched  heavily  along  the  pebbled 
path,  a  woman  with  a  piece  of  sewing  in  her  hand 
came  into  the  hall  and  spoke  his  name. 

"Christopher,  you  are  late." 

Her  voice  was  deep  and  musical,  with  a  richness  of 
volume  which  raised  deluding  hopes  of  an  impas- 
sioned beauty  in  the  speaker — who,  as  she  crossed  the 
illumined  square  of  the  window-frame,  showed  as  a 
tall,  thin  woman  of  forty  years,  with  squinting  eyes, 
and  a  face  whose  misshapen  features  stood  out  like 
the  hasty  drawing  for  a  grotesque.  When  she 
reached  him  Christopher  turned  from  the  porch,  and 
they  walked  together  slowly  out  into  the  moonlight, 
passing  under  the  aspen  where  the  turkeys  stirred 
and  fluttered  in  their  sleep. 

"Has  her  cat  come  home,  Cynthia  ?"  were  the 
young  man's  first  anxious  words. 

"About  sunset.  Uncle  Boaz  found  her  over  at 
Aunt  Daphne's,  hunting  mice  under  the  joists. 
Mother  had  fretted  terribly  over  the  loss. " 

"Is  she  easier  now?" 

"  Much  more  so,  but  she  still  asks  for  the  port.  We 
pretend  that  Uncle  Boaz  has  mislaid  the  key  of  the 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  49 

wine-cellar.  She  upbraided  him,  and  he  bore  it  so 
patiently,  poor  old  soul!" 

Christopher  quickly  reached  into  the  deep  pocket 
of  his  overalls  and  drew  out  the  scanty  wages  of  his 
last  three  days'  labour. 

"Send  this  by  somebody  down  to  Tompkins,"  he 
said,  "and  get  the  wine  he  ordered.  He  refuses  to 
sell  on  credit  any  longer,  so  I  had  to  find  the  money." 

She  looked  up,  startled. 

"Oh,  Christopher,  you  have  worked  for  Fletcher?" 

Tears  shone  in  her  eyes  and  her  mouth  quivered. 
"Oh,  Christopher!"  she  repeated,  and  the  emotional 
quality  in  her  voice  rang  strong  and  true.  He  fell 
back,  angered,  while  the  hand  she  had  stretched 
out  dropped  limply  to  her  side. 

"For  God's  sake,  don't  snivel,"  he  retorted  harshly. 
"Send  the  money'  and  give  her  the  wine,  but  dole  it 
out  like  a  miser,  for  where  the  next  will  come  from 
is  more  than  I  can  tell." 

"The  pay  for  my  sewing  is  due  in  three  days,"  said 
Cynthia,  raising  her  roughened  hand  on  which  the 
needle-scars  showed  even  in  the  moonlight.  "Mother 
has  worried  so  to-day  that  I  couldn't  work  except  at 
odd  moments,  but  I  can  easily  manage  to  sit  up 
to-night  and  get  it  done.  She  thinks  I'm  embroid- 
ering an  ottoman,  you  see,  and  this  evening  she  asked 
to  feel  the  silks." 

He  uttered  a  savage  exclamation. 

"Oh,  I  gave  her  some  ravellings  from  an  old  tidy," 
she  hastened  to  assure  him.  "She  played  with  them 
awhile  and  knew  no  better,  as  I  told  her  the  colours 
one  by  one.  Afterward  she  planned  all  kinds  of 
samplers  and  fire-screens  that  I   might  work.     Her 


5o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

own  knitting  has  wearied  her  of  late,  so  we  haven't 
been  obliged  to  buy  the  yarn." 

"She  doesn't  suspect,  you  think  ?" 

Cynthia  shook  her  head.  "After  fifteen  years  of 
deception  there's  no  danger  of  my  telling  the  truth 
to-day.  I  only  wish  I  could,"  she  added,  with  that 
patient  dignity  which  is  the  outward  expression 
of  complete  renouncement.  When  she  lifted  her 
tragic  face  the  tears  on  her  cheeks  softened  the  pain- 
ful hollows,  as  the  moonbeams,  playing  over  her  gown 
of  patched  and  faded  silk,  revived  for  a  moment  the 
freshness  of  its  discoloured  flowers. 

"The  truth  would  be  the  death  of  her,"  said  the 
young  man,  in  a  bitter  passion  of  anxiety.  "Tell 
her  that  Fletcher  owns  the  Hall,  and  that  for  fifteen 
years  she  has  lived,  blind  and  paralysed,  in  the  over- 
seer's house !  Why,  I'd  rather  stick  a  knife  into  her 
heart  myself !" 

"Her  terrible  pride  would  kill  her — yes,  you're 
right.     We'll  keep  it  up  to  the  end  at  any  cost." 

He  turned  to  her  with  a  sudden  terror  in  his  face. 
"She  isn't  worse,  is  she?" 

"Worse?  Oh,  no;  I  only  meant  the  cost  to  us — 
the  cost  of  never  speaking  the  truth  within  the  house." 

"Well,  I'm  not  afraid  of  lying,  God  knows,"  he 
answered,  in  the  tone  of  one  from  whom  a  burden 
has  been  removed.  "I'm  only  wondering  how  much 
longer  I'll  be  able  to  afford  the  luxury." 

"But  we're  no  worse  off  than  usual,  that's  one 
comfort.  Mother  is  quite  happy  now  since  Beulah 
has  been  found,  and  the  only  added  worry  is  that 
Aunt  Dinah  is  laid  up  in  her  cabin  and  we've  had  to 
send  her  soup.     Uncle  Isam  has  come  to  see  you, 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  51 

by  the  way.  I  believe  he  wants  you  to  give  him 
some  advice  about  his  little  hut  up  in  the  woods, 
and  to  look  up  his  birth  in  the  servants'  age-book, 
too.  He  lives  five  miles  away,  you  know,  and  works 
across  the  river  at  Farrar's  Mills." 

"Uncle  Isam !"  exclaimed  Christopher,  wonder- 
ingly;  "why,  what  do  I  know  about  the  man?  I 
haven't  laid  eyes  on  him  for  the  last  ten  years.'/ 

"But  he  wants  help  now,  so  of  course  he's  come 
to  you,  and  as  he's  walked  all  the  distance — equally 
of  course — he'll  stay  to  supper.  Mother  has  her 
young  chicken,  and  there's  bacon  and  cornbread 
for  the  rest  of  us,  so  I  hope  the  poor  man  won't  go 
back  hungry.  Ever  since  Aunt  Polly's  chimney 
blew  down  she  has  had  to  fry  the  middling  in  the 
kitchen,  and  mother  complains  so  of  the  smell.  She 
can't  understand  why  we  have  it  three  times  a  day, 
and  when  I  told  her  that  Uncle  Tucker  acquired  the 
habit  in  the  army,  she  remarked  that  it  was  very 
inconsiderate  of  him  to  insist  upon  gratifying  so 
extraordinary  a  taste." 

Christopher  laughed  shortly. 

"Well,  it's  a  muck  of  a  world,"  he  declared  cheer- 
fully, taking  off  his  coarse  harvest  hat  and  running 
his  hand  through  his  clustering  fair  hair.  In  the 
mellow  light  the  almost  brutal  strength  of  his  jaw 
was  softened,  and  his  sunburned  face  paled  to  the 
beauty  of  some  ancient  ivory  carving.  Cynthia, 
gazing  up  at  him,  caught  her  breath  with  a  sob. 

"How  big  you  are,  and  strong!  How  fit  for  any 
life  in  the  world  but  this  !" 

"Don't  whimper,"  he  responded  roughly,  adding, 
after  a  moment,  "Precious  fit  for  anything  but  the 


52  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stable  or  the  tobacco  field !  Why,  I  couldn't  so 
much  as  write  a  decently  spelled  letter  to  save  my 
soul.  A  darky  asked  me  yesterday  to  read  a  post- 
bill  for  him  down  at  the  store,  and  I  had  to  skip  a 
big  word  in  the  first  line." 

He  made  his  confession  defiantly,  with  a  certain 
boorish  pride  in  his  ignorance  and  his  degradation. 

"My  dear,  my  dear,  I  wanted  to  teach  you — I 
will  teach  you  now.     We  will  read  together." 

"And  let  mother  and  Uncle  Tucker  plough  the 
field,  and  plant  the  crop,  and  cut  the  wood.  No,  it 
won't  answer;  your  learning  would  do  me  no  good, 
and  I  don't  want  it — I  told  you  that  when  you  first 
took  me  from  my  study  and  put  me  to  do  all  the 
chores  upon  the  place." 

"I  take  you  !  Oh,  Christopher,  what  could  we  do? 
Uncle  Tucker  was  a  hopeless  cripple,  there  wasn't  a 
servant  strong  enough  to  spade  the  garden,  and  there 
were  only  Lila  and  you  and  I." 

"And  I  was  ten.  Well,  I'm  not  blaming  you, 
and  I've  done  what  I  was  forced  to—but  keep  your 
confounded  books  out  of  my  sight,  that's  all  I  ask. 
Is  that  mother  calling?" 

Cynthia  bent  her  ear.  "I  thought  Lila  was  with 
her,  but  I'll  go  at  once.  Be  sure  to  change  your 
clothes,  dear,  before  she  touches  you." 

"Hadn't  I  better  chop  a  little  kindling-wood 
before  supper?" 

"No — no,  not  to-night.  Go  and  dress,  while  I 
send  Uncle  Boaz  for  the  wine." 

She  entered  the  house  with  a  hurried  step,  and 
Christopher,  after  an  instant's  hesitation,  passed  to 
the   back,  and,  taking   off    his   clumsy  boots,    crept 


"  In  a  massive  Elizabethan  chair  of  blackened  oak  a  stately  old 
lady  was  sitting  straight  and  stiff." 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  53 

softly  up  the  creaking  staircase  to  his  little  garret 
room  in  the  loft. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  came  down  again,  wearing 
a  decent  suit  of  country-made  clothes,  with  the  dust 
washed  from  his  face,  and  his  hair  smoothly  brushed 
across  his  forehead.  In  the  front  hall  he  took  a 
white  rosebud  from  a  little  vase  of  Bohemian  glass 
and  pinned  it  carefully  in  the  lapel  of  his  coat. 
Then,  before  entering,  he  stood  for  a  moment  silent 
upon  the  threshold  of  the  lamplighted  room. 

In  a  massive  Elizabethan  chair  of  blackened  oak 
a  stately  old  lady  was  sitting  straight  and  stiff,  with 
her  useless  legs  stretched  out  upon  an  elaborately 
embroidered  ottoman.  She  wore  a  dress  of  rich  black 
brocade,  made  very  full  in  the  skirt,  and  sleeves 
after  an  earlier  fashion,  and  her  beautiful  snow-white 
hair  was  piled  over  a  high  cushion  and  ornamented 
by  a  cap  of  fine  thread  lace.  In  her  face,  which  she 
turned  at  the  first  footstep  with  a  pitiable,  blind 
look,  there  were  the  faint  traces  of  a  proud,  though 
almost  extinguished,  beauty — traces  which  were 
visible  in  the  impetuous  flash  of  her  sightless  eyes, 
in  the  noble  arch  of  her  brows,  and  in  the  transparent 
quality  of  her  now  yellowed  skin,  which  still  kept  the 
look  of  rare  porcelain  held  against  the  sunlight. 
On  a  dainty,  rose-decked  tray  beside  her  chair  there 
were  the  half  of  a  broiled  chicken,  a  thin  glass  of  port, 
and  a  plate  of  buttered  waffles;  and  near  her  high 
footstool  a  big  yellow  cat  was  busily  lapping  a  saucer 
of  new  milk. 

As  Christopher  went  up  to  her,  she  stretched  out 
her  hand  and  touched  his  face  with  her  sensitive 
fingers.     "Oh,  if  I  could  only  see  you,"  she  said,  a 


54  THE  DELIVERANCE 

little  peevishly.  "It  is  twenty  years  since  I  looked 
at  you,  and  now  you  are  taller  than  your  father  was, 
you  say.  I  can  feel  that  your  hair  is  light,  like  his — 
and  like  Lila's,  too,  since  you  are  twins. " 

A  pretty,  fragile  woman,  who  was  wrapping  a  shawl 
about  the  old  lady's  feet,  rose  to  her  full  height  and 
passed  behind  the  Elizabethan  chair.  "Just  a  shade 
lighter  than  mine,  mother,"  she  responded;  "the  sun 
makes  a  difference,  you  know;  he  is  in  the  sun  so 
much  without  a  hat.  "  As  she  stood  with  her  delicate 
hands  clasped  above  the  fancifully  carved  grotesques 
upon  the  chair-back,  her  beauty  shone  like  a  lamp 
against  the  smoke-stained  walls. 

"Ah,  if  you  could  but  have  seen  his  father  when  he 
was  young,  Lila, "  sighed  her  mother,  falling  into  one 
of  the  easy  reveries  of  old  age.  "  I  met  him  at  a  fancy 
ball,  you  know,  where  he  went  as  Achilles  in  full 
Grecian  dress.  Oh !  the  sight  he  was,  my  dear,  one 
of  the  few  fair  men  among  us,  and  taller  even  than 
old  Colonel  Fitzhugh,  who  was  considered  one  of  the 
finest  figures  of  his  time.  That  was  a  wild  night  for 
me,  Christopher,  as  I've  told  you  often  before — it 
was  love  at  first  sight  on  both  sides,  and  so  marked 
were  your  father's  attentions  that  they  were  the  talk 
of  the  ball.  Edward  Morris — the  greatest  wit  of  his 
day,  you  know — remarked  at  supper  that  the  weak 
point  of  Achilles  was  proved  at  last  to  be  not  his 
heel,  but  his  heart." 

She  laughed  with  pleasure  at  the  memory,  and 
returned  in  a  half-hearted  fashion  to  her  plate  of 
buttered  waffles.  "Have  you  been  riding  again, 
Christopher?"  she  asked  after  a  moment,  as  if 
remembering  a  grievance.     "I  haven't  had  so  much 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  55 

as  a  word  from  you  to-day,  but  when  one  is 
chained  to  a  chair  like  this  it  is  useless  to  ask  even 
to  be  thought  of  amid  your  pleasures. " 

"I  always  think  of  you,  mother." 

"Well,  I'm  glad  to  hear  it,  my  dear,  though  I'm 
sure  I  should  never  imagine  that  you  do.  Have  you 
heard,  by  the  way,  that  Boaz  lost  the  key  of  the  wine- 
cellar,  and  that  I  had  to  go  two  whole  days  without 
my  port?  I  declare,  he  is  getting  so  careless  that 
I'm  afraid  we'll  have  to  put  another  butler  over 
him. " 

"Lawd,  ole  miss,  you  ain'  gwine  do  dat,  is  you?" 
anxiously  questioned  Uncle  Boaz  as  he  filled  her 
glass. 

She  lifted  the  wine  to  her  lips,  her  stern  face  soften- 
ing. Like  many  a  high-spirited  woman  doomed  to 
perpetual  inaction,  her  dominion  over  her  servants 
had  grown  to  represent  the  larger  share  of  life. 

"Then  be  more  careful  in  future,  Boaz,"  she  cau- 
tioned. "Tell  me,  Lila,  what  has  become  of  Nathan, 
the  son  of  Phyllis  ?  He  used  to  be  a  very  bright  little 
darkey  twenty  years  ago,  and  I  always  intended  put- 
ting him  in  the  dining-room,  but  things  escape  me 
so.  His  mother,  Phyllis,  I  remember,  got  some 
ridiculous  idea  about  freedom  in  her  head,  and  ran 
away  with  the  Yankee  soldiers  before  we  whipped 
them." 

Lila's  face  flushed,  for  since  the  war  Nathan  had 
grown  into  one  of  the  most  respectable  of  freedmen, 
but  Uncle  Boaz,  with  a  glib  tongue,  started  valiantly 
to  her  support. 

"Go  'way,  ole  miss;  dat  ar  Natan  is  de  mos' 
ornery  un  er  de   hull  bunch,"  he   declared.     "Wen 


56  THE  DELIVERANCE 

he   comes  inter  my  dinin'-'oom,  out  I'se  gwine,  an' 
dat's  sho. " 

The  old  lady  passed  a  hand  slowly  across  her  brow. 
"I  can't  remember — I  can't  remember,"  she  mur- 
mured; "but  I  dare  say  you're  right,  Boaz — and  that 
reminds  me  that  this  bottle  of  port  is  not  so  good  as 
the  last.  Have  you  tried  it,  Christopher?" 
(^/'Not  yet,  mother.  Where  did  you  find  it,  Uncle 
Boaz?" 

"Hit's  des  de  same,  suh,"  protested  Uncle  Boaz. 
"Dey  wuz  bofe  un  um  layin'  right  side  by  side,  des 
like  dey  'uz  bo'n  blood  kin,  en  I  done  dus'  de  cobwebs 
off'n  um  wid  de  same  duster,  dat  I  is. "    • 

"Well,  well,  that  will  do.  Now  go  in  to  supper, 
children,  and  send  Docia  to  take  my  tray.  Dear  me, 
I  do  wish  that  Tucker  could  be  persuaded  to  give  up 
that  vulgar  bacon.  I'm  not  so  unreasonable,  I  hope, 
as  to  expect  a  man  to  make  any  sacrifices  in  this 
world — that's  the  woman's  part,  and  I've  tried  to  take 
my  share  of  it — but  to  conceive  of  a  passion  for  a 
thing  like  bacon — I  declare  is  quite  beyond  me.  " 

"Come,  now,  Lucy,  don't  begin  to  meddle  with  my 
whims,"  protested  the  cheerful  tones  of  Tucker,  as 
he  entered  on  his  crutches,  one  of  which  was  strapped 
to  the  stump  of  his  right  arm.  "Allow  me  my  dissi- 
pations, my  dear,  and  I'll  not  interfere  with  yours.  " 

"Dissipations!"  promptly  took  up  the  old  lady, 
from  the  hearth.  "Why,  if  it  were  such  a  gentle- 
manly thing  as  a  dissipation,  Tucker,  I  shouldn't 
say  a  word — not  a  single  word.  A  taste  for  wine 
is  entirely  proper,  I'm  sure,  and  even  a  little 
intoxication  is  permissible  on  occasions — such  as 
christenings,   weddings,  and  Christmas  Eve  gather- 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  57 

ings.  Your  father  used  to  say,  Christopher,  that 
the  proof  of  a  gentleman  was  in  the  way  he 
held  his  wine.  But  to  fall  a  deliberate  victim 
to  so  low-born  a  vice  as  a  love  of  bacon  is 
something  that  no  member  of  our  family  has  ever 
done  before. " 

"That's  true,  Lucy,"  pleasantly  assented  Tucker; 
"but  then,  you  see,  no  member  of  our  family  had  ever 
fought  three  years  for  his  State — to  say  nothing  of 
losing  a  leg  and  an  arm  in  her  service.  " 

His  fine  face  was  ploughed  with  the  marks  of 
suffering,  but  the  heartiness  had  not  left  his  voice, 
and  his  smile  still  shone  bright  and  strong.  From 
a  proud  position  as  the  straightest  shot  and  the 
gayest  liver  of  his  day,  he  had  been  reduced  at  a  single 
blow  to  the  couch  of  a  hopeless  cripple.  Poverty 
had  come  a  little  later,  but  the  second  shock  had  only 
served  to  steady  his  nerves  from  the  vibration  of  the 
first,  and  the  courage  which  had  drooped  within 
him  for  a  time  was  revived  in  the  form  of  a  rare  and 
gentle  humour.  Nothing  was  so  terrible  but  Tucker 
could  get  a  laugh  out  of  it,  people  said — not  knowing 
that  since  he  had  learned  to  smile  at  his  own  ghastly 
failure  it  was  an  easy  matter  to  turn  the  jest  on 
universal  joy  or  woe. 

The  old  lady's  humour  melted  at  his  words,  and 
she  hastened  to  offer  proof  of  her  contrition.  "You're 
perfectly  right,  brother,"  she  said;  "and  I  know  I'm 
an  ungrateful  creature,  so  you  needn't  take  the 
trouble  to  tell  me.  As  long  as  you  do  me  the  honour 
to  live  beneath  my  roof,  you  shall  eat  the  whole  hog 
or  none  to  your  heart's  content." 

Then,  as  Docia,  a  large  black  woman,  with  brass 


58  THE  DELIVERANCE 

hoops  in  her  ears,  appeared  to  bear  away  the  supper 
tray,  Mrs.  Blake  folded  her  hands  and  settled  herself 
for  a  nap  upon  her  cushions,  while  the  yellow  cat 
purred  blissfully  on  her  knees. 

Beyond  the  adjoining  bedroom,  through  which 
Christopher  passed,  a  rude  plank  platform  led 
to  a  long,  unceiled  room  which  served  as  kitchen 
and  dining-room  in  one.  Here  a  cheerful  blaze  made 
merry  about  an  ancient  crane,  on  which  a  coffee- 
boiler  swung  slowly  back  and  forth  with  a  bubbling 
noise.  In  the  red  firelight  a  plain  pine  table  was 
spread  with  a  scant  supper  of  cornbread  and  bacon 
and  a  cracked  Wedgewood  pitcher  filled  with  butter- 
milk. There  was  no  silver;  the  china  consisted 
of  some  odd,  broken  pieces  of  old  willow-ware; 
and  beyond  a  bunch  of  damask  roses  stuck  in  a  quaint 
glass  vase,  there  was  no  visible  attempt  to  lighten 
the  effect  of  extreme  poverty.  An  aged  Negress,  in 
a  dress  of  linsey-woolsey  which  resembled  a  patch- 
work quilt,  was  pouring  hot,  thin  coffee  into  a  row  of 
cups  with  chipped  or  missing  saucers. 

Cynthia  was  already  at  the  table,  and  when  Christo- 
pher came  in  she  served  him  with  an  anxious  haste 
like  that  of  a  stricken  mother.  To  Tucker  and 
herself  the  coarse  fare  was  unbearable  even  after  the 
custom  of  fifteen  years,  and  time  had  not  lessened  the 
surprise  with  which  they  watched  the  young  man's 
healthful  enjoyment  of  his  food.  Even  Lila,  whose 
glowing  face  in  its  nimbus  of  curls  lent  an  almost 
festive  air  to  her  end  of  the  white  pine  board,  ate 
with  a  heartiness  which  Cynthia,  with  her  out- 
grown standard  for  her  sex,  could  not  but  find  a 
trifle  vulgar.     The  elder  sister  had  been  born  to  a 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  59 

different  heritage — to  one  of  restricted  views  ana 
mincing  manners  for  a  woman — and,  despite  herself, 
she  could  but  drift  aimlessly  on  the  widening  current 
of  the  times. 

"Christopher,  will  you  have  some  coffee — it  is 
stronger  now?"  she  asked  presently,  reaching  for  his 
emptied  cup. 

"Dis  yer  stuff  ain'  no  cawfy,"  grumbled  Aunt 
Polly,  taking  the  boiler  from  the  crane;  "hit  ain' 
nuttin'  but  dishwater,  I  don'  cyar  who  done  made 
hit."  Then,  as  the  door  opened  to  admit  Uncle 
Isam  with  a  bucket  from  the  spring,  she  divided  her 
scorn  equally  between  him  and  the  coffee-pot. 

"You  needn't  be  a-castin'  er  you  nets  into  dese  yer 
pairts,"  she  observed  cynically. 

Uncle  Isam,  a  dried  old  Negro  of  seventy  years, 
shambled  in  patiently  and  placed  the  bucket  carefully 
upon  the  stones,  to  be  shrilly  scolded  by  Aunt  Polly 
for  spilling  a  few  drops  on  the  floor.  "I  reckon  you 
is  steddyin'  ter  outdo  Marse  Noah,"  she  remarked 
with  scorn. 

"Howdy,  Marse  Christopher?  Howdy,  Marse 
Tuck?"  Uncle  Isam  inquired  politely,  as  he  seated 
himself  in  a  low  chair  on  the  hearth  and  dropped 
his  clasped  hands  between  his  open  knees. 

Christopher  nodded  carelessly.  "Glad  to  see  you, 
Isam,"  Tucker  cordially  responded.  "Times  have 
changed  since  you  used  to  live  over  here." 

"Dat's  so,  suh,  dat's  so.  Times  dey's  done  change, 
but  I  ain't — I'se  des  de  same.  Dat's  de  tribble  wid 
dis  yer  worl';  w'en  hit  change  yo'  fortune  hit  don' 
look  ter  changin'  yo'  skin  es  well." 

"That's  true;  but  you're  doing  all  right,  I  hope?" 


6o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"I  dunno,  Marse  Tuck,"  replied  Uncle  Isam, 
coughing  as  a  sudden  spurt  of  smoke  issued  from 
the  old  stone  chimney.  "I  dunno  'bout  dat.  Times 
dey's  right  peart,  but  I  ain't.  De  vittles  dey's  ready 
ter  do  dar  tu'n,  but  de  belly,  hit  ain't." 

"What — are  you  sick?"  asked  Cynthia,  with  inter- 
est, rising  from  the  table. 

Uncle  Isam  sighed.  "  I'se  got  a  tur'able  peskey 
feelin',  Miss  Cynthy,  dat's  de  gospel  trufe,"  he 
returned.  "I  dunno  whur  hit's  de  lungs  er  de  liver, 
but  one  un  um  done  got  moughty  sassy  ter  de  yuther 
'en  he  done  flung  de  reins  right  loose.  Hit  looks 
pow'ful  like  dey  wuz  gwine  ter  run  twel  dey  bofe  drap 
down  daid,  so  I  done  come  all  dis  way  atter  a  dose  er 
dem  bitters  ole  miss  use  ter  gin  us  befo'  de  wah. " 

"Well,  I  never!"  said  Cynthia,  laughing.  "I 
believe  he  means  the  brown  bitters  mother  used  to 
make  for  chills  and  fever.  I'm  very  sorry,  Uncle  Isam, 
but  we  haven't  any.    We  don't  keep  it  any  longer.  " 

Leaning  over  his  gnarled  palms,  the  old  man  shook 
his  head  is  sober  reverie. 

"  Dar  ain'  nuttin'  like  dem  bitters  in  dese  yer  days,  " 
he  reflected  sadly,  "  'caze  de  smell  er  dem  use  ter  mos' 
knock  you  flat  'fo'  you  done  taste  'em,  en  all  de  way 
ter  de  belly  dey  use  ter  keep  a-wukin'  fur  dey  livin'. 
Lawd !  Lawd !  I'se  done  bought  de  biggest  bottle  er 
sto'  stuff  in  de  sto',  en  hit  slid  right  spang  down  'fo' 
I  got  a  grip  er  de  taste  er  hit.  " 

"I'll  tell  you  how  to  mix  it, "  said  Cynthia  sympa- 
thetically. "It's  very  easy;  I  know  Aunt  Eve  can 
brew  it. " 

"Go  'way,  Miss  Cynthy;  huccome  you  don'  know 
better'n  dat  ?     Dar  ain'  no  Eve.     She's  done  gone. " 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  61 

"Gone!     Is  she  dead?" 

"  Naw'm,  she  ain'  daid  dat  I  knows — she's  des  gone. 
Hit  all  come  along  er  dem  highfalutin'  notions  dat's 
struttin'  roun'  dese  days  'bout  prancin'  up  de  chu'ch 
aisle  en  bein'  mah'ed  by  de  preacher,  stedder  des 
totin'  all  yo'  belongin's  f'om  one  cabin  ter  anurr,  en 
roas'in'  yo'  ash-cake  in  de  same  pile  er  ashes.  You 
see,  me  en  Eve  we  hed  done  'sperunce  mah'age  gwine 
on  fifty  years,  but  we  ain'  nuver  'sperunce  de  cere- 
mony twel  las'  watermillion  time." 

"Why,  Uncle  Isam,  did  she  leave  you  because  of 
that  ?  Here,  draw  up  to  the  table  and  eat  your 
supper,  while  I  get  down  the  age-book  and  find 
your  birth. " 

She  reached  for  a  dusty  account  book  on  one  of  the 
kitchen  shelves,  and,  bringing  it  to  the  table,  began 
slowly  turning  the  yellowed  leaves.  For  more  than 
two  hundred  years  the  births  of  all  the  Blake  slaves 
had  been  entered  in  the  big  volume. 

"You  des  wait,  Miss  Cynthy,  you  des  wait  twel  I 
git  dar, "  remonstrated  Uncle  Isam,  as  he  stirred  his 
coffee.  "I  ain'  got  no  use  fur  dese  yer  newf angle 
fashions,  dat's  w'at  I  tell  de  chillun  w'en  dey  begin 
a-pesterin'  me  ter  mah'y  Eve — I  ain'  got  no  use 
fur  dem  no  way  hit's  put — I  ain'  got  no  use  fur  dis 
yer  struttin'  up  de  aisle  bus'ness,  ner  fur  dis  yer 
w'arin'  er  sto'-made  shoes,  ner  fur  dis  yer  leavin'  er 
de  hyar  unwropped,  needer.  Hit  looks  pisonous 
tickly  ter  me,  dat's  w'at  I  sez,  but  w'en  dey  keep  up 
dey  naggin'  day  in  en  day  out,  en  I  cam'  git  shunt  er 
um,  I  hop  right  up  en  put  on  my  Sunday  bes'  en  go 
'long  wid  'em  ter  de  chu'ch — me  en  Eve  bofe  a-mincin' 
des  like  peacocks.     'You  des  pay  de  preacher,'  dat's 


62  THE  DELIVERANCE 

wat  I  tell  'em,  'en  I'se  gwine  do  all  de  mah'yin'  dat's 
ter  be  done';  en  w'en  de  preacher  done  got  thoo  wid 
me  en  Eve,  I  stood  right  up  in  de  chu'ch  an  axed  ef 
dey  wus  any  udder  nigger  'ooman  es  'ud  like  ter  do  a 
little  mah'yin'  ?  '  Hit's  es  easy  ter  mah'y  a  dozen  es 
ter  mah'y  one,'  I  holler  out. " 

"Oh,  Uncle  Isam !  No  wonder  Aunt  Eve  was 
angry.  Here  we  are — 'Isam,  son  of  Docia,  born 
August  12,  1 8 — .  " 

"Lawd,  Miss  Cynthy,  'twan'  me  dat  mek  Eve 
mad — twuz  de  preacher,  'caze  atter  we  got  back  ter 
de  cabin  en  eat  de  watermillion  ter  de  rin',  she  up  en 
tied  her  bonnet  on  tight  es  a  chestnut  burr  en  made 
right  fur  de  do'.  De  preacher  done  tole  'er,  she  sez, 
dat  Eve  'uz  in  subjection  ter  her  husban',  en  she'd  let 
'im  see  she  warn'  gwine  be  subjected  unner  no  man, 
she  warn't.  'Fo'  de  Lawd,  Miss  Cynthy,  dat  ar  Eve 
sutney  wuz  a  high-sperited  'ooman!" 

"But,  Uncle  Isam,  it  was  so  silly.  Why,  she'd 
been  married  to  you  already  for  a  lifetime. " 

"Dat's  so,  Miss  Cynthy,  dat's  so,  'caze  'twuz  dem 
ar  wuds  dat  rile  'er  mos'.  She  'low  she  done  been  in 
subjection  fur  gwine  on  fifty  years  widout  knowin' 
hit. " 

He  finished  his  coffee  at  a  gulp  and  leaned  back  in 
his  chair. 

"En  now  des  lemme  hyear  how  ole  I  is,"  he 
wound  up  sorrowfully. 

"The  twelfth  of  August,  18 —  (that's  the  date  of 
your  birth),  makes  you — let  me  see — you'll  be 
seventy  years  old  next  summer.  There,  now,  since 
you've  found  out  what  you  wanted,  you'd  better 
spend  the  night  with  Uncle  Boaz. " 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  BLAKES  63 

"Thanky,  ma'am,  but  I  mus'  be  gwine  back  agin,  " 
responded  Uncle  Isam,  shuffling  to  his  feet,  "en  ef 
you  don'  min',  Marse  Christopher,  I'd  like  a  wud  wid 
you  outside  de  do'." 

Laughing,    Christopher   rose   from   his   chair   and,    | 
with  a  patriarchal  dignity  of   manner,  followed  the 
old  man  into  the  moonlight. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Carraway  Plays  Courtier  / 

At  twelve  o'clock  the  next  day,  Carraway,  walking 
in  the  June  brightness  along  the  road  to  the  Blake 
cottage,  came  suddenly,  at  the  bend  of  the  old  ice- 
pond,  upon  Maria  Fletcher  returning  from  a  morning 
ride.  The  glow  of  summer  was  in  her  eyes,  and  though 
her  face  was  still  pale,  she  seemed  to  him  a  different 
creature  from  the  grave,  repressed  girl  of  the  night 
before.  He  noticed  at  once  that  she  sat  her  horse 
superbly,  and  in  her  long  black  habit  all  the  sinuous 
lines  of  her  figure  moved  in  rhythm  with  the  rapid 
pace. 

As  she  neared  him,  and  apparently  before  she  had 
noticed  his  approach,  he  saw  her  draw  rein  quickly, 
and,  screened  by  the  overhanging  boughs  of  a  blossom- 
ing chestnut,  send  her  glance  like  a  hooded  falcon 
across  the  neighbouring  field.  Following  the  aim  of 
her  look,  he  saw  Christopher  Blake  walking  idly 
among  the  heavy  furrows,  watching,  with  the  interest 
of  a  born  agriculturist,  the  busy  transplanting  of 
Fletcher's  crop.  He  still  wore  his  jean  clothes, 
which,  hanging  loosely  upon  his  impressive  figure, 
blended  harmoniously  Y\rith  the  dull-purple  tones  of 
the  upturned  soil.  Beyond  him  there  was  a  back- 
ground of  distant  wood,  still  young  in  leaf,  and  his 

65 


66  THE  DELIVERANCE 

bared  head,  with  the  strong,  sunburned  line  of  his 
profile,  stood  out  as  distinctly  as  a  portrait  done  in 
early  Roman  gold. 

That  Maria  had  seen  in  him  some  higher  possibility 
than  that  of  a  field  labourer  was  soon  evident  to 
Carraway,  for  her  horse  was  still  standing  on  the 
slight  incline,  and  as  he  reached  her  side  she  turned 
with  a  frank  question  on  her  lips. 

"Is  that  one  of  the  labourers — the  young  giant  by 
the  fence?  " 

"Well,  I  dare  say  he  labours,  if  that's  what  you 
mean.     He's  young  Blake,  you  know." 

"Young  Blake?"  She  bent  her  brows,  and  it  was 
clear  that  the  name  suggested  only  a  trivial  recollec- 
tion to  her  mind.  "There  used  to  be  some  Blake 
children  in  the  old  overseer's  house — is  this  one  of 
them." 

"Possibly;  they  live  in  the  overseer's  house." 

She  leaned  over,  fastening  her  heavy  gauntlet. 
"They  wouldn't  play  with  me,  I  remember;  I  couldn't 
understand  why.  Once  I  carried  my  dolls  over  to 
their  yard,  and  the  boy  set  a  pack  of  hounds  on  me. 
I  screamed  so  that  an  old  Negro  ran  out  and  drove 
them  off,  and  all  the  time  the  boy  stood  by,  laughing 
and  calling  me  names.     Is  that  he,  do  you  think?" 

"I  dare  say.     It  sounds  like  him." 

"Is  he  so  cruel?"  she  asked  a  little  wistfully. 

"I  don't  know  about  that — but  he  doesn't  like 
your  people.  Your  grandfather  had  some  trouble 
with  him  a  long  time  ago." 

"And  he  wanted  to  punish  me  ? — how  cowardly." 

"It  does  sound  rather  savage,  but  it  isn't  an  ordi- 
nary c^se,  you   know.     He's  the  kind  of  person  to 


CARRAWAY  PLAYS  COURTIER  67 

curse  'root  and  branch,'  from  all  I  hear,  in  the  good 
old  Biblical  fashion." 

"Oh,  well,  he's  certainly  very  large,  isn't  he?" 

"He's  superb,"  said  Carraway,  with  conviction. 

"At  a  distance — so  is  that  great  pine  over  there," 
she  lifted  her  whip  and  pointed  across  the  field ;  then 
as  Carraway  made  no  answer,  she  smiled  slightly  and 
rode  rapidly  toward  the  Hall. 

For  a  few  minutes  the  lawyer  stood  where  she  had 
left  him,  watching  in  puzzled  thought  her  swaying 
figure  on  the  handsome  horse.  The  girl  fretted 
him,  and  yet  he  felt  that  he  liked  her  almost  in  spite 
of  himself — liked  something  fine  and  fearless  he  found 
in  her  dark  eyes;  liked,  too,  even  while  he  sneered, 
her  peculiar  grace  of  manner.  There  was  the  making 
of  a  woman  in  her  after  all,  he  told  himself,  as  he 
turned  into  the  sunken  road,  where  he  saw  Christo- 
pher already  moving  homeward.  He  had  meant 
to  catch  up  with  him  and  join  company  on  the  way, 
but  the  young  man  covered  ground  so  quickly  with 
his  great  strides  that  at  last  Carraway,  losing  sight 
of  him  entirely,  resigned  himself  to  going  leisurely 
about  his  errand. 

When,  a  little  later,  he  opened  the  unhinged  white- 
washed gate  before  the  cottage,  the  place,  as  he  found 
it,  seemed  to  be  tenanted  solely  by  a  family  of  young 
turkeys  scratching  beneath  the  damask  rose-bushes 
in  the  yard.  From  a  rear  chimney  a  dark  streak 
of  smoke  was  rising,  but  the  front  of  the  house 
gave  no  outward  sign  of  life,  and  as  there  came  no 
answer  to  his  insistent  knocks  he  at  last  ventured 
to  open  the  door  and  pass  into  the  narrow  hall. 
From  the  first  room  on  the  right  a  voice  spoke  at 


68  THE  DELIVERANCE 

his  entrance,  and  following  the  sound  he  found  him- 
self face  to  face  with  Mrs.  Blake  in  her  massive 
Elizabethan  chair. 

"There  is  a  stranger  in  the  room,"  she  said  rigidly, 
turning  her  sightless  eyes;  "speak  at  once." 

"I  beg  pardon  most  humbly  for  my  intrusion," 
replied  Carraway,  conscious  of  stammering  like  an 
offending  schoolboy,  "but  as  no  one  answered  my 
knock,  I  committed  the  indiscretion  of  opening  a 
closed  door." 

Awed  as  much  by  the  stricken  pallor  of  her  appear- 
ance as  by  the  inappropriate  grandeur  of  her  black 
brocade  and  her  thread  lace  cap,  he  advanced  slowly 
and  stood  awaiting  his  dismissal. 

"What  door?"  she  demanded  sharply,  much  to  his 
surprise. 

"Yours,  madam." 

"Not  answer  your  knock?"  she  pursued,  with 
indignation.  "  So  that  was  the  noise  I  heard,  and  no 
wonder  that  you  entered.  Why,  what  is  the  matter 
with  the  place?     Where  are  the  servants?" 

He  humbly  replied  that  he  had  seen  none,  to  be 
taken  up  with  her  accustomed  quickness  of  touch. 

"Seen  none !  Why,  there  are  three  hundred  of 
them,  sir.  Well,  well,  this  is  really  too  much.  I 
shall  put  a  butler  over  Boaz  this  very  day." 

For  an  instant  Carraway  felt  strangely  tempted  to 
turn  and  run  as  fast  as  he  could  along  the  sunken 
road — remembering,  as  he  struggled  with  the  impulse, 
that  he  had  once  been  caught  at  the  age  of  ten  and 
whipped  for  stealing  apples.  Recovering  with  an 
effort  his  sense  of  dignity,  he  offered  the  suggestion 
that  Boaz,  instead  of  being  seriously  in  fault,  might 


CARRAWAY  PLAYS  COURTIER  69 

merely  have  been  engaged  in  useful  occupations 
"somewhere  at  the  back." 

"What  on  earth  can  he  have  to  do  at  the  back, 
sir?"  inquired  the  irrepressible  old  lady;  "but  since 
you  were  so  kind  as  to  overlook  our  inhospitable 
reception,  will  you  not  be  equally  good  and  tell  me 
your  name?" 

"I  fear  it  won't  enlighten  you  much,"  replied  the 
lawyer  modestly,  "but  my  name  happens  to  be  Guy 
Carraway. " 

"Guy — Guy  Carraway,"  repeated  Mrs.  Blake,  as  if 
weighing  each  separate  letter  in  some  remote  social 
scales.  "  I've  known  many  a  Guy  in  my  day — and  that 
part,  at  least,  of  your  name  is  quite  familiar.  There 
was  Guy  Nelson,  and  Guy  Blair,  and  Guy  Marshall, 
the  greatest  beau  of  his  time — but  I  don't  think  I 
ever  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  a  Carraway  before.  " 

"That  is  more  than  probable,  ma'am,  but  I  have 
the  advantage  of  you,  since,  as  a  child,  I  was  once 
taken  out  upon  the  street  corner  merely  to  see  you  go 
by  on  your  way  to  a  fancy  ball,  where  you  appeared 
as  Diana. " 

Mrs.  Blake  yielded  gracefully  to  the  skilful  thrust. 

"Ah,  I  was  Lucy  Corbin  then,"  she  sighed.  "You 
find  few  traces  of  her  in  me  now,  sir.  " 

"  Unfortunately,  your  mirror  cannot  speak  for  me.  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

"You're  a  flatterer — a  sad  flatterer,  I  see,"  she 
returned,  a  little  wistfully;  "  but  it  does  no  harm,  as 
I  tell  my  son,  to  natter  the  old.  It  is  well  to  strew 
the  passage  to  the  grave  with  flowers." 

"How  well  I  remember  that  day,"  said  Carraway, 
speaking  softly.     "There  was  a  crowd  about  the  door, 


7o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

waiting  to  see  you  come  out,  and  a  carpenter  lifted 
me  upon  his  shoulder.  Your  hair  was  as  black  as 
night,  and  there  was  a  circle  round  your  head " 

"A  silver  fillet,"  she  corrected,  with  a  smile  in 
which  there  was  a  gentle  archness. 

"A  fillet,  yes;  and  you  carried  a  bow  and  a  quiver 
full  of  arrows.     I  declare,  it  seems  but  yesterday." 

"It  was  more  than  fifty  years  ago, "  murmured  the 
old  lady.  "Well,  well,  I've  had  my  day,  sir,  and  it 
was  a  merry  one.  I  am  almost  seventy  years  old — 
I'm  half  dead,  and  stone  blind  into  the  bargain,  but  I 
can  say  to  you  that  this  is  a  cheerful  world  in  spite  of 
the  darkness  in  which  I  linger  on.  I'd  take  it  over 
again  and  gladly  any  day — the  pleasure  and  the  pain, 
the  light  and  the  darkness.  Why,  I  sometimes  think 
that  my  present  blindness  was  given  me  in  order  that 
I  might  view  the  past  more  clearly.  There's  not  a 
ball  of  my  youth,  nor  a  face  I  knew,  nor  even  a  dress 
I  wore,  that  I  don't  see  more  distinctly  every  day. 
The  present  is  a  very  little  part  of  life,  sir;  it's  the  past 
in  which  we  store  our  treasures." 

"You're  right,  you're  right,"  replied  Carraway, 
drawing  his  chair  nearer  the  embroidered  ottoman 
and  leaning  over  to  stroke  the  yellow  cat;  "and  I'm 
glad  to  hear  so  cheerful  a  philosophy  from  your  lips.  " 

"It  is  based  on  a  cheerful  experience — I've  been  as 
you  see  me  now  only  twenty  years.  " 

Only  twenty  years !  He  looked  mutely  round  the 
soiled  whitewashed  walls,  where  hung  a  noble  gather- 
ing of  Blake  portraits  in  massive  old  gilt  frames. 
Among  them  he  saw  the  remembered  face  of  Lucy 
Corbin  herself,  painted  under  a  rose-garland  held  by 
smiling  Loves. 


CARRAWAY  PLAYS  COURTIER  71 

"Life  has  its  trials,  of  course, "  pursued  Mrs.  Blake, 
as  if  speaking  to  herself.  "I  can't  look  out  upon 
the  June  flowers,  you  know,  and  though  the  pink 
crape-myrtle  at  my  window  is  in  full  bloom  I  cannot 
see  it. " 

Following  her  gesture,  Carraway  glanced  out  into 
the  little  yard;  no  myrtle  was  there,  but  he  remem- 
bered vaguely  that  he  had  seen  one  in  blossom  at 
the  Hall. 

"You  keep  flowers  about  you,  though,"  he  said, 
alluding  to  the  scattered  vases  of  June  roses. 

"Not  my  crape-myrtle.  I  planted  it  myself  when 
I  first  came  home  with  Mr.  Blake,  and  I  have  never 
allowed  so  much  as  a  spray  of  it  to  be  plucked. " 

Forgetting  his  presence,  she  lapsed  for  a  time  into 
one  of  the  pathetic  day-dreams  of  old  age.  Then 
recalling  herself  suddenly,  her  tone  took  on  a  spright- 
liness  like  that  of  youth. 

"It's  not  often  that  we  have  the  pleasure  of  enter- 
taining a  stranger  in  our  out-of-the-way  house,  sir — 
so  may  I  ask  where  you  are  staying — or  perhaps  you 
will  do  us  the  honour  to  sleep  beneath  our  roof.  It 
has  had  the  privilege  of  sheltering  General  Wash- 
ington. " 

"You  are  very  kind,"  replied  Carraway,  with  a 
gratitude  that  was  from  his  heart,  "but  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  feel  that  I  am  sailing  under  false  colours. 
The  real  object  of  my  visit  is  to  ask  a  business 
interview  with  your  son.  I  bring  what  seems  to  me 
a  very  fair  offer  for  the  place.  " 

Grasping  the  carved  arms  of  her  chair,  Mrs.  Blake 
turned  the  wonder  in  her  blind  eyes  upon  him. 

"An  offer  for  the  place  !     Why,  you  must  be  dream- 


72  THE  DELIVERANCE 

ing,  sir !  A  Blake  owned  it  more  than  a  hundred 
years  before  the  Revolution." 

At  the  instant,  understanding  broke  upon  Carraway 
like  a  thundercloud,  and  as  he  rose  from  his  seat  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  had  missed  by  a  single  step 
the  yawning  gulf  before  him.  Blind  terror  gripped 
him  for  the  moment,  and  when  his  brain  steadied  he 
looked  up  to  meet,  from  the  threshold  of  the  adjoining 
room,  the  enraged  flash  of  Christopher's  eyes.  So 
tempestuous  was  the  glance  that  Carraway,  impul- 
sively falling  back,  squared  himself  to  receive  a 
physical  blow;  but  the  young  man,  without  so  much 
as  the  expected  oath,  came  in  quietly  and  took  his 
stand  behind  the  Elizabethan  chair. 

"Why,  what  a  joke,  mother,"  he  said,  laughing; 
"he  means  the  old  Weatherby  farm,  of  course.  The 
one  I  wanted  to  sell  last  year,  you  know." 

"I  thought  you'd  sold  it  to  the  Weatherbys, 
Christopher." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it — they  backed  out  at  the  last;  but 
don't  begin  to  bother  your  head  about  such  things; 
they  aren't  worth  it.  And  now,  sir,"  he  turned  upon 
Carraway,  "since  your  business  is  with  me,  perhaps 
you  will  have  the  goodness  to  step  outside." 

With  the  feeling  that  he  was  asked  out  for  a  beat- 
ing, Carraway  turned  for  a  farewell  with  Mrs.  Blake, 
but  the  imperious  old  lady  was  not  to  be  so  lightly 
defrauded  of  a  listener. 

"Business  may  come  later,  my  son,"  she  said, 
detaining  them  by  a  gesture  of  her  heavily  ringed 
hand.  "After  dinner  you  may  take  Mr.  Carraway 
with  you  into  the  library  and  discuss  your  affairs 
over  a  bottle  of  burgundy,  as  was  your  grandfather's 


CARRAWAY  PLAYS  COURTIER  73 

custom  before  you;  meanwhile,  he  and  I  will  resume 
our  very  pleasant  talk  which  you  interrupted,  He 
remembers  seeing  me  in  the  old  days  when  we  were 
all  in  the  United  States,  my  dear." 

Christopher's  brow  grew  black,  and  he  threw  a 
sharp  and  malignant  glance  of  sullen  suspicion  at 
Carraway,  who  summoned  to  meet  it  his  most  frank 
and  open  look. 

"I  saw  your  mother  in  the  height  of  her  fame," 
he  said,  smiling,  "so  I  may  count  myself  tme  of  her 
oldest  admirers,  I  believe.  You  may  assure  yourself," 
he  added  softly,  "that  I  have  her  welfare  very  decid- 
edly at  heart." 

At  this  Christopher  smiled  back  at  him,  and  there 
was  something  of  the  June  brightness  in  his  look. 

"Well,  take  care,  sir,"  he  answered,  and  went  out, 
closing  the  door  carefully  behind  him,  while  Carra- 
way applied  himself  to  a  determined  entertaining  of 
Mrs.  Blake. 

To  accomplish  this  he  found  that  he  had  only  to 
leave  her  free,  guiding  her  thoughts  with  his  lightest 
touch  into  newer  channels.  The  talk  had  grown 
merrier  now,  and  he  soon  discovered  that  she  pos- 
sessed a  sharpened  wit  as  well  as  a  ready  tongue. 
From  subject  to  subject  she  passed  with  amazing 
swiftness,  bearing  down  upon  her  favourite  themes 
with  the  delightful  audacity  of  the  talker  who  is 
born,  not  made.  She  spoke  of  her  own  youth,  of 
historic  flirtations  in  the  early  twenties,  of  great 
beaux  she  had  known,  and  of  famous  recipes  that 
had  been  handed  down  for  generations.  Every- 
where he  felt  her  wonderful  keenness  of  perception — 
that    intuitive   understanding   of   men   and  manners 


74  THE  DELIVERANCE 

which   had  kept  her  for  so  long  the  reigning   belle 
among  her  younger  rivals. 

As  she  went  on  he  found  that  her  world  was  as 
different  from  his  own  as  if  she  dwelt  upon  some 
undiscovered  planet — a  world  peopled  with  shades 
and  governed  by  an  ideal  group  of  abstract  laws. 
She  lived  upon  lies,  he  saw,  and  thrived  upon  the 
sweetness  she  extracted  from  them.  For  her  the 
Confederacy  had  never  fallen,  the  quiet  of  her  dream- 
land had  been  disturbed  by  no  invading  army,  and 
the  three  hundred  slaves,  who  had  in  reality  scattered 
like  chaff  before  the  wind,  she  still  saw  in  her  cheerful 
visions  tilling  her  familiar  fields.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
fallen  asleep  with  the  great  blow  that  had  wrecked 
her  body,  and  had  dreamed  on  steadily  throughout 
the  years.  Of  real  changes  she  was  as  ignorant  as  a 
new-born  child.  Events  had  shaken  the  world  to  its 
centre,  and  she,  by  her  obscure  hearth,  had  not  felt 
so  much  as  a  sympathetic  tremor.  In  her  memory 
there  was  no  Appomattox,  news  of  the  death  of 
Lincoln  had  never  reached  her  ears,  and  president 
had  peacefully  succeeded  president  in  the  secure 
Confederacy  in  which  she  lived.  Wonderful  as  it  all 
was,  to  Carraway  the  most  wonderful  thing  was  the 
intricate  tissue  of  lies  woven  around  her  chair.  Lies 
—lies — there  had  been  nothing  but  lies  spoken  within 
her  hearing  for  twenty  years. 


CHAPTER  VII 

In  Which  a  Stand  Is  Made 

The  wonder  was  still  upon  him  when  Docia  appeared 
bearing  her  mistress's,  dinner-tray,  and  a  moment 
later  Cynthia  came  in  and  paused  uncertainly  near 
the  threshold. 

"Do  you  wish  anything,  mother  ?" 

"Only  to  present  Mr.  Carraway,  my  child.  He 
will  be  with  us  at  dinner." 

Cynthia  came  forward  smiling  and  held  out  her 
hand  with  the  cordial  hospitality  which  she  had 
inherited  with  the  family  portraits  and  the  good  old 
name.  She  wore  this  morning  a  dress  of  cheap  black 
calico,  shrunken  from  many  washings,  and  beneath 
the  scant  sleeves  Carraway  saw  her  thin  red  wrists, 
which  looked  as  if  they  had  been  soaking  in  harsh 
soapsuds.  Except  for  a  certain  ease  of  manner  which 
she  had  not  lost  in  the  drudgery  of  her  life,  she 
might  have  been  sister  to  the  toilworn  slattern  he 
had  noticed   in  one  of  the  hovels  across  the  country. 

"We  shall  be  very  glad  to  have  you, "  she  said,  with 
quiet  dignity.     "It  is  ready  now,  I  think.  " 

"Be  sure  to  make  him  try  the  port,  Cynthia," 
called  Mrs.  Blake,  as  Carraway  followed  the  daughter 
across  the  threshold. 

In  the  kitchen  they  found  Tucker  and  Lila  and  a 

75 


76  THE  DELIVERANCE 

strange  young  man  in  overalls,  who  was  introduced 
as  "one  of  the  Weatherbys  who  live  just  up  the 
road.  "  He  was  evidently  one  of  their  plainer  neigh- 
bours, for  Carraway  detected  at  once  a  constraint  in 
Cynthia's  manner  which  Lila  did  not  appear  to  share. 
The  girl,  dressed  daintily  in  a  faded  muslin,  with  an 
organdy  kerchief  crossed  over  her  swelling  bosom, 
flashed  upon  Carraway 's  delighted  vision  like  one  of 
the  maidens  hanging,  gilt-framed,  in  the  old  lady's 
parlour.  That  she  was  the  particular  pride  of  the 
family — the  one  luxury  they  allowed  themselves 
besides  their  costly  mother — the  lawyer  realised  upon 
the  instant.  Her  small  white  hands  were  unsoiled  by 
any  work,  and  her  beautiful,  kindly  face  had  none  of 
the  nervous  dread  which  seemed  always  lying  behind 
Cynthia's  tired  eyes.  With  the  high  devotion  of  a 
martyr,  the  elder  sister  must  have  offered  herself  a 
willing  sacrifice,  winning  for  the  younger  an  existence 
which,  despite  its  gray  monotony,  showed  fairly 
rose-coloured  in  comparison  with  her  own.  She 
herself  had  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  servant,  but  through 
it  all  Lila  had  remained  "the  lady,"  preserving  an 
equable  loveliness  to  which  Jim  Weatherby  hardly 
dared  lift  his  wistful  gaze. 

As  for  the  young  man  himself,  he  had  a  blithe,  open 
look  which  Carraway  found  singularly  attractive — 
the  kind  of  look  it  warms  one's  heart  to  meet  in  the 
long  road  on  a  winter's  day.  Leaning  idly  against 
the  lintel  of  the  door,  and  fingering  a  bright  axe  which 
he  was  apparently  anxious  that  they  should  retain, 
he  presented  a  pleasant  enough  picture  to  the  atten- 
tive eyes  within  the  kitchen. 

"  You'd  as  well  keep  this  axe  as  long  as  you  want  it," 


IN  WHICH  A  STAND  IS  MADE  77 

he  protested  earnestly.  "It's  an  old  one,  anyway, 
that  I  sharpened  when  you  asked  for  it,  and  we've 
another  at  home;  that's  all  we  need." 

"It's  very  kind  of  you,  Jim,  but  ours  is  mended 
now,"  replied  Cynthia,  a  trifle  stiffly. 

"If  we  need  one  again,  we'll  certainly  borrow 
yours,  "  added  Lila,  smiling  as  she  looked  up  from  the 
glasses  she  was  filling  with  fresh  buttermilk. 

"Sit  down,  Jim,  and  have  dinner  with  us;  there's 
no  hurry, "  urged  Tucker  hospitably,  with  a  genial 
wave  toward  the  meagerly  spread  table.  "Jim's  a 
great  fellow,  Mr.  Carraway;  you  ought  to  know  him. 
He  can  manage  anything  from  a  Sunday-school  to 
the  digging  of  a  well.  I've  always  said  that  if  he'd 
had  charge  of  the  children  of  Israel's  journey  to  the 
promised  land  he'd  have  had  them  there,  flesh-pots 
and  all,  before  the  week  was  up. " 

"I  can  see  he  is  a  useful  neighbour,"  observed 
Carraway,  glancing  at  the  axe. 

"Well,  I'm  glad  I  come  handy,"  replied  Jim  in  his 
hearty  way;  "and  are  you  sure  you  don't  want  me 
to  split  up  that  big  oak  log  at  the  woodpile  ?  I  can 
do  it  in  a  twinkling." 

Cynthia  declined  his  knightly  offer,  to  be  overruled 
again  by  Lila's  smiling  lips. 

"  Christopher  will  have  to  do  it  when  he  comes  in, " 
she  said;  "poor  Christopher,  he  never  has  a  single 
moment  of  his  own." 

Jim  Weatherby  looked  at  her  eagerly,  his  blue  eyes 
full  of  sparkle.  "Why,  I  can  do  it  in  no  time,"  he 
declared,  shouldering  his  axe,  and  a  moment  after- 
ward they  heard  his  merry  strokes  from  the  woodpile. 

"Are  you  interested  in  tobacco,  Mr.  Carraway?" 


78  THE  DELIVERANCE 

inquired  Tucker,  as  they  seated  themselves  at  the 
pine  table  without  so  much  as  an  apology  for  the 
coarseness  of  the  fare  or  an  allusion  to  their  fallen 
fortunes.  "If  so,  you've  struck  us  at  the  time  when 
every  man  about  here  is  setting  out  his  next  winter's 
chew.  Sol  Peterkin,  by  the  way,  has  planted  every 
square  inch  of  his  land  in  tobacco,  and  when  I 
asked  him  what  market  he  expected  to  send  it  to  he 
answered  that  he  only  raised  a  little  for  his  own  use.  " 

"  Is  that  the  Peterkin  who  has  the  pretty  daughter  ? " 
asked  Cynthia,  slicing  a  piece  of  bacon.  "May  I 
help  you  to  turnip  salad,  Mr.  Carraway?"  Uncle 
Boaz,  hobbling  with  rheumatism,  held  out  a  quaint 
old  tray  of  inlaid  woods ;  and  the  lawyer,  as  he  placed 
his  plate  upon  it,  heaved  a  sigh  of  gratitude  for  the 
utter  absence  of  vulgarity.  He  could  fancy  dear  old 
Miss  Saidie  puffing  apologies  over  the  fat  bacon,  and 
Fletcher  profanely  deploring  the  sloppy  coffee. 

' '  The  half -grown  girl  with  the  bunch  of  flaxen  curls 
tied  with  a  blue  ribbon?"  returned  Tucker,  while 
Lila  cut  up  his  food  as  if  he  were  a  child.  "Yes, 
that's  Molly  Peterkin,  though  it's  hard  to  believe  she's 
any  kin  to  Sol.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she  turned 
into  a  bouncing  beauty  a  few  years  further  on.  " 

"It  was  her  father,  then,  that  I  walked  over  with 
from  the  cross-roads,"  said  Carraway.  "He  struck 
me  as  a  shrewd  man  of  his  sort.  " 

"Oh,  he's  shrewd  enough,"  rejoined  Tucker,  "and 
the  proof  of  it  is  that  he's  outlived  three  wives  and  is 
likely  to  outlive  a  fourth.  I  met  him  in  the  road 
yesterday,  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  just  been  off 
again  to  get  married.  'Good  luck  to  you  this  time, 
Sol',  said  I.     'Wall,  it  ought  to  be,  sir,'  said  he,  'see- 


IN  WHICH  A  STAND  IS  MADE  79 

ing  as  marrying  has  got  to  be  so  costly  in  these  days. 
Why,  my  first  wife  didn't  come  to  more  than  ten 
dollars,  counting  the  stovepipe  hat  and  all,  and  this 
last  one  's  mounted  up  to  'most  a  hundred.'  'Try 
and  take  good  care  of  her,  then,'  I  cautioned;  'they 
come  too  high  to  throw  away.'  'That's  true,  sir,'  he 
answered,  with  a  sorrowful  shake  of  his  head.  'But 
the  trouble  is  that  as  the  price  goes  up  the  quality 
gets  poorer.  My  first  one  lasted  near  on  to  thirty 
years,  and  did  all  the  chores  about  the  house,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  hog-pen;  and  if  you'll  believe  me,  sir, 
the  one  before  this  struck  at  the  hog-feeding  on  her 
wedding  day,  and  then  wore  out  before  twelve 
months  were  up.'  " 

He  finished  with  his  humorous  chuckle  and  lifted 
his  fork  skilfully  in  his  left  hand. 

"I  dare  say  he  overvalues  himself  as  a  husband," 
remarked  Carraway,  joining  in  the  laugh,  "but  he  has 
at  least  the  merit  of  being  loyal'  to  your  family." 

"Well,  I  believe  he  has;  but  then,  he  doesn't  like 
new  folks  or  new  things,  I  reckon.  There's  a  saying 
that  his  hatred  of  changes  keeps  him  from  ever 
changing  his  clothes." 

Christopher  came  in  at  the  moment,  and  with  a 
slight  bow  to  Carraway,  slipped  into  his  place. 

"What's  Jim  Weatherby  chopping  up  that  log  for?" 
he  asked,  glancing  in  the  direction  of  the  ringing 
strokes. 

Cynthia  looked  at  him  almost  grimly,  and  there 
was  a  contraction  of  the  muscles  about  her  determined 
mouth. 

"Ask  Lila,"  she  responded  quietly.  As  Christo- 
pher's questioning  gaze  turned  to  her,   Lila  flushed 


80  THE  DELIVERANCE 

rose-pink  and  played  nervously  with  the  bread- 
crumbs on  the  table. 

"He  said  he  had  nothing  else  to  do,"  she  an- 
swered, with  an  effort,  "and  he  knew  you  were 
so  busy — that  was   all." 

"Well,  he's  a  first  rate  fellow,"  commented  Christo- 
pher, as  he  reached  for  the  pitcher  of  buttermilk, 
"but  I  don't  see  what  makes  him  so  anxious  to  do 
my  work." 

"Oh,  that's  Jim's  way,  you  know,"  put  in  Tucker 
with  his  offhand  kindliness.  "He's  the  sort  of  old 
maid  who  would  undertake  to  straighten  the  wilder- 
ness if  he  could  get  the  job.  Why,  I  actually  found 
him  once  chopping  off  dead  boughs  in  the  woods, 
and  when  I  laughed  he  excused  himself  by  saying 
that  he  couldn't  bear  to  see  trees  look  so  scraggy." 

As  he  talked,  his  pleasant  pale  blue  eyes  twinkled 
with  humour,  and  his  full  double  chin  shook  over  his 
shirt  of  common  calico.  He  had  grown  very  large 
from  his  long  inaction,  and  it  was  with  a  perceptible 
effort  that  he  moved  himself  upon  his  slender  crutches. 
Yet  despite  his  maimed  and  suffering  body  he  was 
dressed  with  a  scrupulous  neatness  which  was  almost 
like  an  air  of  elegance.  As  he  chatted  on  easily, 
Carraway  forgot,  in  listening  to  him,  the  harrowing 
details  in  the  midst  of  which  he  sat — forgot  the  over- 
heated, smoky  kitchen,  the  common  pine  table  with 
its  broken  china,  and  the  sullen  young  savage  whom 
he  faced. 

For  Christopher  was  eating  his  dinner  hurriedly, 
staring  at  his  plate  in  a  moodiness  which  he  did  not 
take  the  trouble  to  conceal.  With  all  the  youthful 
beauty  of  his   face,  there   was  a  boorishness  in  his 


IN  WHICH  A  STAND  IS  MADE  81 

ill-humour  which  in  a  less  commanding  figure  would 
have  been  repellent — an  evident  pride  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  scowl  upon  his  brow. 

When  his  meal  was  over  he  rose  with  a  muttered 
excuse  and  went  out  into  the  yard,  where  a  few 
minutes  afterward  Carraway  was  bold  enough  to 
follow  him. 

The  afternoon  was  golden  with  sunshine,  and 
every  green  leaf  on  the  trees  seemed  to  stand  out 
clearly  against  the  bright  blue  sky.  In  the  rear  of 
the  house  there  was  a  lack  of  the  careful  cleanliness 
he  had  noticed  at  the  front,  and  rotting  chips  from 
the  woodpile  strewed  the  short  grass  before  the  door, 
where  a  clump  of  riotous  ailanthus  shoots  was  waging 
a  desperate  battle  for  existence.  Beside  the  sunken 
wooden  step  a  bare  brown  patch  showed  where  the 
daily  splashes  of  hot  soapsuds  had  stripped  the  ground 
of  even  the  modest  covering  that  it  wore.  Within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  threshold  the  half  of  a  broken 
wheelbarrow,  white  with  mould,  was  fast  crumbling 
into  earth,  and  a  little  farther  off  stood  a  disorderly 
group  of  chicken  coops  before  which  lay  a  couple  of 
dead  nestlings.  On  the  soaking  plank  ledge  around 
the  well -brink,  where  fresh  water  was  slopping  from 
the  overturned  bucket,  several  bedraggled  ducks 
were  paddling  with  evident  enjoyment.  The  one 
pleasant  sight  about  the  place  was  the  sturdy  figure 
of  Jim  Weatherby,  still  at' work  upon  the  giant  body 
of  a  dead  oak  tree. 

When  Carraway  came  out,  Christopher  was  feeding 
a  pack  of  hounds  from  a  tin  pan  of  coarse  corn  bread, 
and  to  the  lawyer's  surprise  he  was  speaking  to  them 
in    a   tone    that    sounded    almost    jocular.     Though 


82  THE  DELIVERANCE 

born  of  a  cringing  breed,  the  dogs  looked  contented 
and  well  fed,  and  among  them  Carraway  recognised 
his  friend  Spy,  who  had  followed  at  the  heels  of 
Uncle  Boaz. 

"Here,  Miser,  this  is  yours,"  the  young  man  was 
saying.  "There,  you  needn't  turn  up  your  nose; 
it's  as  big  as  Blister's.  Down,  Spy,  I  tell  you;  you've 
had  twice  your  share;  you  think  because  you're  the 
best  looking  you're  to  be  the  best  fed,  too." 

As  Carraway  left  the  steps  the  dogs  made  an  angry 
rush  at  him,  to  be  promptly  checked  by  Christopher. 

"Back,  you  fools;  back,  I  say.  You'd  better  be 
careful  how  you  walk  about  here,  sir,"  he  added; 
"they'd  bite  as  soon  as  not — all  of  them  except 
Spy." 

"Good  fellow,  Spy,"  returned  Carraway,  a  little 
nervously,  and  the  hound  came  fawning  to  his  feet. 
"I  assure  you  I  have  no  intention  of  treading  upon 
their  preserves,"  he  hastened  to  explain;  "but  I 
should  like  a  word  with  you,  and  this  seems  to  be 
the  only  opportunity  I'll  have,  as  I  return  to  town 
to-morrow." 

Christopher  threw  the  remaining  pieces  of  corn 
bread  into  the  wriggling  pack,  set  the  pan  in  the 
doorway,  and  wiped  his  hands  carelessly  upon  his 
overalls. 

"Well,  I  don't  see  what  you've  got  to  say  to  me," 
he  replied,  walking  rapidly  in  the  direction  of  the 
well,  where  he  waited  for  the  other  to  join  him. 

"It's  about  the  place,  of  course,"  returned  the 
lawyer,  with  an  attempt  to  shatter  the  awkward 
rustic  reserve.  "I  understand  that  it  has  passed  into 
your  possession." 


IN  WHICH  A  STAND  IS  MADE  83 

The  young  man  nodded,  and,  drawing  out  his 
clasp-knife,  fell  to  whittling  a  splinter  which  he  had 
broken  from  the  well-brink. 

"In  that  case,"  pursued  Carraway,  feeling  as  if 
he  were  dashing  his  head  against  a  wall,  "I  shall 
address  myself  to  you  in  the  briefest  terms.  The 
place,  I  suppose,  as  it  stands,  is  not  worth  much 
to-day.     Even  good  land  is  cheap,  and  this  is  poor." 

Again  Christopher  nodded,  intent  upon  his  whit- 
tling. "I  reckon  it  wouldn't  bring  more  than  nine 
hundred,"  he  responded  coolly. 

"Then  my  position  is  easy,  for  I  am  sure  you  will 
consider  favourably  the  chance  to  sell  at  treble  its 
actual  value.  I  am  authorised  to  offer  you  three 
thousand  dollars  for  the  farm." 

For  a  moment  Christopher  stared  at  him  in  silence, 
then,  "What  in  the  devil  do  you  want  with  it?"  he 
demanded. 

"I  am  not  acting  for  myself  in -the  matter,"  returned 
the  lawyer,  after  a  short  hesitation.  "The  offer  is 
made  through  me  by  another.  That  it  is  to  your 
advantage  to  accept  it  is  my  honest  conviction." 

Christopher  tossed  the  bit  of  wood  at  a  bedraggled 
drake  that  waddled  off,  quacking  angrily. 

"Then  it's  Fletcher  behind  you,"  he  said  in  the 
same  cool  tones. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  is  neither  here  nor  there. 
Naturally  Mr.  Fletcher  is  very  anxious  to  secure  the 
land.  As  it  stands,  it  is  a  serious  inconvenience  to 
him,  of  course. 

Laughing,  Christopher  snapped  the  blade  of  his 
knife. 

"Well,  you  may  tell  him  from  me,"  he  retorted, 


84  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"that  just  as  long  as  it  is  'a  serious  inconvenience  to 
him'  it  shall  stand  as  it  is.  Why,  man,  if  Fletcher 
wanted  that  broken  wheelbarrow  enough  to  offer 
me  three  thousand  dollars  for  it,  I  wouldn't  let  him 
have  it.  The  only  thing  I'd  leave  him  free  to  take,  if 
I  could  help  it,  is  the  straight  road  to  damnation  !" 

His  voice,  for  all  the  laughter,  sounded  brutal, 
and  Carraway,  gazing  at  him  in  wonder,  saw  his  face 
grow  suddenly  lustful  like  that  of  an  evil  deity.  The 
beauty  was  still  there,  blackened  and  distorted,  a 
beauty  that  he  felt  to  be  more  sinister  than  ugliness. 
The  lawyer  was  in  the  presence  of  a  great  naked 
passion,  and  involuntarily  he  lowered  his  eyes. 

"I  don't  think  he  understands  your  attitude,"  he 
said  quietly;  "it  seems  to  him — and  to  me  also,  I 
honestly  affirm — that  you  would  reap  an  advantage 
as  decided  as  his  own." 

"Nothing  is  to  my  advantage,  I  tell  you,  that  isn't 
harm  to  him.  He  knows  it  if  he  isn't  as  big  a  fool  as 
he  is  a  rascal." 

"Then  I  may  presume  that  you  are  entirely  con- 
vinced in  your  own  mind  that  you  have  a  just 
cause  for  the  stand  you  take?" 

"Cause  !"  the  word  rapped  out  like  an  oath.  "He 
stole  my  home,  I  tell  you;  he  stole  every  inch  of  land 
I  owned,  and  every  penny.  Where  did  he  get  the 
money  to  buy  the  place — he  a  slave-overseer  ?  Where 
did  he  get  it,  I  ask,  unless  he  had  been  stealing  for 
twenty  years  ?" 

"It  looks  ugly,  I  confess,"  admitted  Carraway; 
"but  were  there  no  books — no  accounts  kept  ?" 

"Oh,  he  settled  that,  of  course.  When  my  father 
died,  and  we  asked  for  the  books,  where  were  they? 


IN  WHICH  A  STAND  IS  MADE  85 

Burned,  he  said — burned  in  the  old  office  that  the 
Yankees  fired.  He's  a  scoundrel,  I  tell  you, 
sir,  and  I  know  him  to  the  core.  He's  a  rotten 
scoundrel !" 

Carraway  caught  his  breath  quickly  and  drew 
back  as  if  he  had  touched  unwittingly  a  throbbing 
canker.  To  his  oversensitive  nature  these  primal 
emotions  had  a  crudeness  that  was  vulgar  in  its  unre- 
straint. He  beheld  it  all — the  old  wrong  and  the 
new  hatred — in  a  horrid  glare  of  light,  a  disgraceful 
blaze  of  trumpets.  Here  there  was  no  cultured 
evasion  of  the  conspicuous  vice — none  of  the  refine- 
ments even  of  the  Christian  ethics — it  was  all  raw 
and  palpitating  humanity. 

"Then  my  mission  is  quite  useless,"  he  confessed. 
"I  can  only  add  that  I  am  sorrier  than  I  can  say — 
sorry  for  the  whole  thing,  too.  If  my  services  could 
be  of  any  use  to  you  I  should  not  hesitate  to  offer 
them,  but  so  far  as  I  see  there  is  absolutely  nothing 
to  be  done.  An  old  crime,  as  you  know,  very  often 
conforms  to  an  appearance  of  virtue." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  Christopher  shook  it,  and 
then  the  lawyer  went  back  into  the  house  to  bid 
good-by  to  Mrs.  Blake.  When  he  came  out  a  few 
moments  later,  and  passed  through  the  whitewashed 
gate  into  the  sunken  road,  he  saw  that  Christopher 
was  still  standing  where  he  had  left  him,  the  golden 
afternoon  around  him,  and  the  bedraggled  ducks 
paddling  at  his  feet. 


[i 


CHAPTER  VIII 
Treats  op  a  Passion  That  Is  Not  Love 

Over  a  distant  meadow  fluted  the  silver  whistle 
of  a  partridge,  and  Christopher,  lifting  his  head, 
noted  involuntarily  the  direction  of  the  sound. 
A  covey  was  hatching  down  by  the  meadow  brook, 
he  knew — for  not  a  summer  mating  nor  a  hidden 
nest  had  escaped  his  eyes — and  he  wondered  vaguely 
if  the  young  birds  were  roaming  into  Fletcher's 
wheatfield.  Then,  with  a  single  vigorous  movement 
as  if  he  were  settling  his  thoughts  upon  him,  he 
crossed  the  yard,  leaped  the  fence  by  the  barnyard, 
and  started  briskly  along  the  edge  of  a  little  cattle 
pasture,  where  a  strange  bull  bellowed  in  the  shadow 
of  a  walnut-tree. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  pasture  a  crumbling  rail  fence 
divided  his  land  from  Fletcher's,  and  as  he  looked 
over  the  festoons  of  poisonous  ivy  he  saw  Fletcher 
himself  overseeing  the  last  planting  of  his  tobacco. 
For  a  time  Christopher  watched  them  as  through  a 
mist — watched  the  white  and  the  black  labourers, 
the  brown  furrows  in  which  the  small  holes  were 
bored,  the  wilted  plants  thrown  carelessly  in  place 
and  planted  with  two  quick  pressures  of  a  bare, 
earth-begrimed  foot.  He  smelled  the  keen  odours 
released  by  the  sunshine  from  the  broken  soil;   he 

87 


88  THE  DELIVERANCE 

saw  the  standing  beads  of  sweat  on  the  faces  of  the 
planters — Negroes  with  swollen  lips  and  pleasant 
eyes  like  those  of  kindly  animals — and  he  heard  th6 
coarse,  hectoring  voice  of  Fletcher,  who  stood  mid- 
way of  the  naked  ground.  To  regard  the  man  as  a 
mere  usurper  of  his  land  had  been  an  article  in  the 
religious  creed  the  child  had  learned,  and  as  he 
watched  him  now,  bearded,  noisy,  assured  of  his  pos- 
sessions, the  sight  lashed  him  like  the  strokes  of  a 
whip  on  bleeding  flesh.  In  the  twenty-five  years  of 
his  life  he  had  grown  fairly  gluttonous  of  hate — had 
tended  it  with  a  passion  that  was  like  that  of  love. 
Now  he  felt  that  he  had  never  really  had  enough  of 
it — had  never  feasted  on  the  fruit  of  it  till  he  was 
satisfied — had  never  known  the  delight  of  wallowing 
in  it  until  to-day.  Deep-rooted  like  an  instinct  as  the 
feeling  was,  he  knew  now  that  there  had  been  hours 
when,  for  very  weakness  of  his  nature,  he  had  almost 
forgotten  that  he  meant  to  pay  back  Fletcher  in  the 
end,  when  it  seemed,  after  all,  easier  merely  to  endure 
and  forget  and  have  it  done. 

Still  keeping  upon  his  own  land,  he  turned  presently 
and  followed  a  little  brook  that  crossed  a  meadow 
where  mixed  wild  flowers  were  strewn  loosely  in  the 
grass.  The  bull  still  bellowed  in  the  shadow  of  the 
walnut-tree,  and  he  found  himself  listening  with  pure 
delight  to  the  savage  cries.  Reaching  at  last  a  point 
where  the  brook  turned  westward  at  the  foot  of  a 
low  green  hill,  he  threw  himself  over  the  dividing  rail 
fence,  and  came,  at  the  end  of  a  minute's  hurried 
walk,  to  the  old  Blake  graveyard,  midway  of  one 
of  Fletcher's  fallow  fields.  The  gate  was  bricked  up, 
after    the    superstitious    custom    of    many    country 


A  PASSION  THAT  IS  NOT  LOVE  89 

burial  places,  but  he  climbed  the  old  moss-grown 
wall,  where  poisonous  ivy  grew  rank  and  venomous, 
and  landing  deep  in  the  periwinkle  that  carpeted 
the  ground,  made  his  way  rapidly  to  the  flat  oblong 
slab  beneath  which  his  father  lay.  The  marble  was 
discoloured  by  long  rains  and  stained  with  bruised 
periwinkle,  and  the  shallow  lettering  was  hidden 
under  a  fall  of  dried  needles  from  a  little  stunted 
fir-tree;  but,  leaning  over,  he  carefully  swept  the 
dust  away  and  loosened  the  imprisoned  name  which 
seemed  to  hover  like  a  spiritual  presence  upon  the 
air. 

"  Here  lies  all  that  is  mortal 

of 

CHRISTOPHER  BLAKE, 

Who  died  in  the  hope  of  a  joyful 

resurrection, 

April  12,  1S6-,  aged  70  years. 

Into  Thy  hands,  O  Lord,  I  commit  my  Spirit." 

Around  him  there  were  other  graves — graves  of 
all  dead  Blakes  for  two  hundred  years,  and  the  flat 
tombstones  were  crowded  so  thickly  together  that  it 
seemed  as  if  the  dead  must  lie  beneath  them  row  on 
row.  It  was  all  in  deep  shadow,  fallen  slabs,  rank 
periwinkle,  dust  and  mould — no  cheerful  sunshine 
had  ever  penetrated  through  the  spreading  cedars 
overhead.  Life  was  here,  but  it  was  the  shy  life  of 
wild  creatures,  approaching  man  only  when  he  had 
returned  to  earth.  A  mocking-bird  purled  a  love 
note  in  the  twilight  of  a  great  black  cedar,  a  lizard 
glided  like  a  gray  shadow  along  one  of  the  overturned 


9o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

slabs,  and  at  his  entrance  a  rabbit  had  started  from 
the  ivy  on  his  father's  grave.  To  climb  the  over- 
grown wall  and  lie  upon  the  periwinkle  was  like 
entering,  for  a  time,  the  world  of  shades — a  world 
far  removed  from  the  sunny  meadow  and  the  low 
green  hill. 

With  his  head  pillowed  upon  his  father's  grave, 
Christopher  stretched  himself  at  full  length  on  the 
ground  and  stared  straight  upward  at  the  dark- 
browed  cedars.  It  was  such  an  hour  as  he  allowed 
himself  at  long  intervals  when  his  inheritance  was 
heavy  upon  him  and  his  disordered  mind  needed  to 
retreat  into  a  city  of  refuge.  As  a  child  he  had 
often  come  to  this  same  spot  to  dream  hopefully  of 
the  future — unboylike  dreams  in  which  the  spirit  of 
revenge  wore  the  face  of  happiness.  Then,  with 
the  inconsequence  of  childhood,  he  had  pictured 
Fletcher  gasping  beneath  his  feet — trampled  out  like 
a  worm,  when  he  was  big  enough  to  take  his 
vengeance  and  come  again  into  his  own.  Mere 
physical  strength  seemed  to  him  at  that  age  the  sole 
thing  needed — he  wanted  then  only  the  brawny  arm 
and  the  heart  bound  by  triple  brass. 

Now,  as  he  stretched  out  his  square,  sunburned 
hand,  with  its  misshapen  nails,  he  laughed  aloud  at 
the  absurdity  of  those  blunted  hopes.  To-day  he 
stood  six  feet  three  inches  from  the  ground,  with 
muscles  hard  as  steel  and  a  chest  that  rang  sound  as 
a  bell,  yet  how  much  nearer  his  purpose  had  he  been 
as  a  little  child  !  He  remembered  the  day  that  he  had 
hidden  in  the  bushes  with  his  squirrel  gun  and  waited 
with  fluttering  breath  for  the  sound  of  Fletcher's 
footsteps  along  the  road.     On  that  day  it  had  seemed 


A  PASSION  THAT  IS  NOT  LOVE  91 

to  him  that  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  in  his  own — 
Godlike  vengeance  nerving  his  little  wrist.  He  had 
meant  to  shoot — for  that  he  had  saved  every  stray- 
penny  from  his  sales  of  hogs  and  cider,  of  water- 
melons and  chinkapins;  for  that  he  had  bought 
the  gun  and  rammed  the  powder  home.  Even  when 
the  thud  of  footsteps  beat  down  the  sunny  road 
strewn  with  brown  honeyshucks,  he  had  felt  neither 
fear  nor  hesitation  as  he  crouched  amid  the  under- 
brush. Rather  there  was  a  rare  exhilaration,  warm 
blood  in  his  brain  and  a  sharp  taste  in  his  mouth  like 
that  of  unripe  fruit — as  if  he  had  gorged  himself  upon 
the  fallen  honeyshucks.  It  was  the  happiest  moment 
of  his  life,  he  knew,  the  one  moment  when  he  seemed 
to  measure  himself  inch  by  inch  with  fate;  and  like 
all  such  supreme  instants,  it  fell  suddenly  flat  among 
the  passing  hours.  For  even  as  the  gun  was  lifted, 
at  the  very  second  that  Fletcher's  heavy  body  swung 
into  view,  he  heard  a  crackling  in  the  dead  bushes  at 
his  back,  and  Uncle  Boaz  struck  up  his  arm  with  a 
palsied  hand. 

"Gawd  alive,  honey,  you  don'  wanter  be  tucken 
out  an'  hunged?"  the  old  man  cried  in  terror. 

The  boy  rose  in  a  passion  and  flung  his  useless  gun 
aside.  "  Oh,  you've  spoiled  it !  you've  spoiled  it !"  he 
sobbed,  and  shed  bitter  tears  upon  the  ground. 

To  this  hour,  lying  on  his  father's  grave,  he  knew 
that  he  regretted  that  wasted  powder — that  will  to 
slay  which  had  blazed  up  and  died  down  so  soon. 
Strangely  enough,  it  soothed  him.  now  to  remember 
how  near  to  murder  he  had  been,  and  as  he  drank  the 
summer  air  in  deep  drafts  he  felt  the  old  desire 
rekindle  from  its  embers.     While  he  lived  it  was  still 


92  THE  DELIVERANCE 

possible — the  one  chance  that  awaits  the  ready  hand, 
the  final  answer  of  a  sympathetic  heaven  that  deals 
out  justice.  His  god  was  a  pagan  god,  terrible 
rather  than  tender,  and  there  had  always  been  within 
him  the  old  pagan  scorn  of  everlasting  mercy.  There 
were  moods  even  when  he  felt  the  kinship  with  his 
savage  forefathers  working  in  his  blood,  and  at  such 
times  he  liked  to  fit  heroic  tortures  to  heroic  crimes — 
to  imagine  the  lighted  stake  and  his  enemy  amid  the 
flames. 

Over  him  as  he  lay  at  full  length  the  ancient  cedars, 
touched  here  and  there  with  a  younger  green,  reared 
a  dusky  tent  that  screened  him  alike  from  the  hot 
sunshine  and  the  bright  June  sky.  Somewhere  in 
the  deepest  shadow  the  mocking-bird  purled  over  its 
single  note,  and  across  the  lettering  on  the  marble 
slab  beside  him  a  small  brown  lizard  was  gliding  back 
and  forth.  The  clean,  fresh  smell  of  the  cedars  filled 
his  nostrils  like  a  balm. 

For  a  moment  the  physical  pleasure  in  his  surround- 
ings possessed  his  thoughts;  then  gradually,  in  a  state 
between  waking  and  sleeping,  the  curious  boughs 
above  took  fantastic  shapes  and  were  interwoven 
before  his  eyes  with  his  earlier  memories. 

There  was  a  great  tester  bed,  with  carved  posts  and 
curtains  of  silvery  damask,  that  he  had  slept  in  as  a 
child,  and  it  was  here  that  he  had  once  had  a  terrible 
dream — a  dream  which  he  had  remembered  to  this 
day  because  it  was  so  like  a  story  of  Aunt  Delisha's, 
in  which  the  devil  comes  with  a  red-hot  scuttle  to 
carry  off  a  little  boy.  On  that  night  he  had  been  the 
little  boy,  and  he  had  seen  the  scuttle  with  its  leap- 
ing flames  so  plainly  that  in  his  terror  he  had  struggled 


A  PASSION  THAT  IS  NOT  LOVE  93 

up  and  screamed  aloud.  A  moment  later  he  had 
awakened  fully,  to  find  a  lighted  candle  in  his  face 
and  his  father  in  a  flowered  dressing-  gown  sitting 
beside  the  bed  and  looking  at  him  with  his  sad, 
bloodshot  eyes. 

"Is  the  devil  gone,  father,  and  did  you  drive  him 
away?"  he  asked;  and  then  the  tall,  white-haired 
old  man,  whose  mind  was  fast  decaying,  did  a  strange 
and  a  pitiable  thing,  for  he  fell  upon  his  knees  beside 
the  bed  and  cried  out  upon  Christopher  for  forgive- 
ness for  the  sefishness  of  his  long  life. 

"You  came  too  late,  my  son,"  he  said;  "you  came 
twenty  years  too  late.  I  had  given  you  up  long 
ago  and  grown  hopeless.  You  came  like  Isaac  to 
Abraham,  but  too  late — too  late  !" 

The  boy  sat  up  in  bed,  huddling  in  the  bedclothes, 
for  the  night  was  chilly.  He  grew  suddenly  afraid  of 
his  father,  the  big,  beautiful  old  man  in  the  flowered 
dressing-gown,  and  he  wished  that  his  mother  would 
come  in  and  take  him  away. 

"But  I  came  twins  with  Lila,  father,"  he  replied, 
trying  to  speak  bravely. 

"With  Lila!  Oh,  my  poor  children  !  my  poor  chil- 
dren !"  cried  the  old  man,  and,  taking  up  his  candle, 
tottered  to  the  door.  Then  Christopher  stopped  his 
ears  in  the  pillows,  for  he  heard  him  moaning  to  him- 
self as  he  went  back  along  the  hall.  He  felt  all  at  once 
terribly  frightened,  and  at  last,  slipping  down  the  tall 
bed-steps,  he  stole  on  his  bare  feet  to  Cynthia's 
door  and  crept  in  beside  her. 

After  this,  dim  years  went  by  when  he  did  not  see 
his  father,  and  the  great  closed  rooms  on  the  north 
side  of  the  house  were  as  silent  as  if  a  corpse  lay  there 


94  THE  DELIVERANCE 

awaiting  burial.  His  beautiful,  stately  mother, 
who,  in  spite  of  her  gray  hair,  had  always  seemed 
but  little  older  than  himself,  vanished  as  mysteriously 
from  his  sight — on  a  thrilling  morning  when  there 
were  many  waving  red  flags  and  much  hurried  march- 
ing by  of  gray-clad  troops.  Young  as  he  was,  he  was 
already  beginning  to  play  his  boy's  share  in  a  war 
which  was  then  fighting  slowly  to  a  finish;  and  in  the 
wild  flutter  of  events  he  forgot,  for  a  time,  to  do  more 
than  tip  softly  when  he  crossed  the  hall.  She  was 
ill,  they  told  him — too  ill  to  care  even  about  the 
battles  that  were  fought  across  the  river.  The 
sound  of  the  big  guns  sent  no  delicious  shivers  through 
her  limbs,  and  there  was  only  Lila  to  come  with  him 
when  he  laid  his  ear  to  the  ground  and  thrilled  with 
the  strong  shock  which  seemed  to  run  around  the 
earth.  When  at  last  her  door  was  opened  again  and 
he  went  timidly  in,  holding  hands  with  Lila,  he  found 
his  mother  sitting  stiffly  erect  among  her  cushions — 
as  she  would  sit  for  the  remainder  of  her  days — 
blind  and  half-dead,  in  her  Elizabethan  chair.  His 
beautiful,  proud  mother,  with  the  smiling  Loves 
painted  above  her  head  ! 

For  an  instant  he  shut  his  eyes  beneath  the  cedars, 
seeing  her  on  that  morning  as  a  man  sees  in  his 
dreams  the  face  of  his  first  love.  Then  another  day 
dawned  slowly  to  his  consciousness — a  day  which 
stood  out  clear-cut  as  a  cameo  from  all  the  others 
of  his  life.  For  weeks  Cynthia's  eyes  had  been  red 
and  swollen,  and  he  commented  querulously  upon 
them,  for  they  made  her  homelier  than  usual.  When 
he  had  finished,  she  looked  at  him  a  moment  without 
replying,  then,  putting  her  arm  about  him,  she  drew 


A  PASSION  THAT  IS  NOT  LOVE  95 

him  out  upon  the  lawn  and  told  him  why  she  wept. 
It  was  a  mellow  autumn  day,  and  they  passed  over 
gold  and  russet  leaves  strewn  deep  along  the  path. 
A  light  wind  was  blowing  in  the  tree-tops,  and  the 
leaves  were  still  falling,  falling,  falling !  He  saw 
Cynthia's  haggard  face  in  a  flame  of  glowing  colours. 
Through  the  drumming  in  his  ears,  which  seemed  to 
come  from  the  clear  sky,  he  heard  the  ceaseless  rustle 
beneath  his  feet;  and  to  this  day  he  could  not  walk 
along  a  leaf -strewn  road  in  autumn  without  seeing 
again  the  blur  of  red-and-gold  and  the  gray  misery 
in  Cynthia's  face. 

"It  will  kill  mother!"  he  said  angrily.  "It  will 
kill  mother !  Why,  she  almost  died  when  Docia 
broke  her  Bohemian  bowl." 

"She  must  never  know,"  answered  Cynthia,  while 
the  tears  streamed  unheeded  down  her  cheeks. 
"When  she  is  carried  out  one  day  for  her 
airing,  she  shall  go  back  into  the  other  house. 
It  is  a  short  time  now  at  best — she  may  die 
at  any  moment  from  any  shock — but  she  must 
die  without  knowing  this.  There  must  be  quiet 
at  the  end,  at  least.  Oh,  poor  mother !  poor 
mother !" 

She  raised  her  hands  to  her  convulsed  face,  and 
Christopher  saw  the  tears  trickle  through  her 
thin  fingers. 

"She  must  never  know,"  repeated  the  boy.  "She 
must  never  know  if  we  can  help  it." 

"We  must  help  it,"  cried  Cynthia  passionately. 
"We  must  work  our  fingers  to  the  bone  to  help  it, 
you  and  I." 

"And  Lila?"  asked  the  boy,  curiously  just  even  in 


96  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  intensity  of  his  emotion.  "Mustn't  Lila  work, 
too?" 

Cynthia  sobbed — hard,  strangling  sobs  that  rattled 
like  stones  within  her  bosom. 

"Lila  is  only  a  girl,"  she  said,  "and  so  pretty,  so 
pretty." 

The  boy  nodded. 

"Then  don't  let's  make  Lila  work,"  he  responded 
sturdily. 

Selfish  in  her  supreme  unselfishness,  the  woman 
turned  and  kissed  his  brow,  while  he  struggled, 
irritated,  to  keep  her  off. 

"Don't  let's,  dear,"  she  said,  and  that  was  all. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Cynthia 

As  soon  as  Christopher  had  passed  out  of  sight, 
Cynthia  came  from  the  kitchen  with  an  armful  of 
wet  linen  and  began  spreading  it  upon  some  scrubby 
lilac  bushes  in  a  corner  of  the  yard.  After  fifteen 
years  it  still  made  her  uncomfortable  to  have  Christo- 
pher around  when  she  did  the  family  washing,  and 
when  it  was  possible  she  waited  to  dry  the  clothes 
until  he  had  gone  back  to  the  field.  In  her  scant 
calico  dress,  with  the  furrows  of  age  already  settling 
about  her  mouth,  and  her  pale  brown  hair  strained 
in  thin  peaks  back  from  her  forehead,  she  might  have 
stood  as  the  world-type  of  toil-worn  womanhood,  for 
she  was  of  the  stuff  of  martyrs,  and  the  dignity  of 
their  high  resolve  was  her  one  outward  grace.  Life 
had  been  revealed  to  her  as  something  to  be  endured 
rather  than  enjoyed,  and  the  softer  adornments  of  her 
sex  had  not  withstood  the  daily  splashes  of  harsh 
soapsuds — they  had  faded  like  colours  too  delicate 
to  stand  the  strain  of  ordinary  use. 

As  she  lifted  one  of  her  mother's  full  white  petti- 
coats and  turned  to  wring  it  dry  with  her  red  and 
blistered  hands,  a  look  that  was  perilously  near 
disgust  was  on  her  face — for  though  she  had  done  her 
duty  heroically  and  meant  to  do  it  until  the  end,  there 

97 


98  THE  DELIVERANCE 

were  brief  moments  when  it  sickened  her  to  despera- 
tion. She  was  the  kind  of  woman  whose  hands  per- 
form the  more  thoroughly  because  the  heart  revolts 
against  the  task. 

Lila,  in  her  faded  muslin  which  had  taken  the  col- 
ours of  November  leaves,  came  to  the  kitchen  door- 
way and  stood  watching  her  with   a  cheerful  face. 

"Has  Jim  Weatherby  gone,  Cynthia?" 

Cynthia  nodded  grimly,  turning  her  squinting  gaze 
upon  her.  "Do  you  think  I'd  let  him  see  me  hang- 
ing out  the  clothes?"  she  snapped.  Supreme  as  her 
unselfishness  was,  there  were  times  when  she  appeared 
to  begrudge  the  least  of  her  services;  and  after  the 
manner  of  all  affection  that  comes  as  a  bounty,  the 
unwilling  spirit  was  more  impressive  than  the  ready 
hand. 

"I  do  wish  you  would  make  Docia  help  you, "  said 
Lila,  in  a  voice  that  sounded  as  if  she  were  speaking 
in  her  own  defense. 

Cynthia  wrung  out  a  blue  jean  shirt  of  Christopher's, 
spread  it  on  an  old  lilac-bush,  and  pushed  a  stray  lock 
of  hair  back  with  her  wrist. 

"There's  no  use  talking  like  that  when  you  know 
Docia  has  heart  disease  and  can't  scrub  the  clothes 
clean,"  she  responded.  "If  she'd  drop  down  dead 
I'd  like  to  know  what  we'd  do  with  mother. " 

"Well,  I'd  help  you  if  you'd  only  let  me,  "  protested 
Lila,  on  the  point  of  tears.  "I've  darned  your 
lavender  silk  the  best  I  could,  and  I'd  just  as  soon 
iron  as  not. " 

"And  get  your  hands  like  mine  in  a  week.  No,  I 
reckon  it's  as  well  for  one  of  us  to  keep  decent.  My 
hands  are  so  knotted  I  had  to  tell  mother  it  was  gout 


CYNTHIA  99 

in  the  joints,  and  she  said  I  must  have  been  drinking 
too  much  port."  She  laughed,  but  her  eyes  filled 
with  tears,  and  she  wiped  them  with  hard  rubs  on  a 
twisted  garment,  which  she  afterward  shook  in  the  air 
to  dry. 

"Well,  you're  a  saint,  Cynthia,  and  I  wish  you 
weren't,"  declared  Lila  almost  impatiently.  "It 
makes  me  feel  uncomfortable,  as  if  it  were  somehow 
my  fault  that  you  had  to  be  so  good.  " 

"  Being  a  saint  is  a  good  deal  like  being  a  woman,  I 
reckon,"  returned  Cynthia  dryly.  "There's  a  heap 
in  having  been  born  to  it.  Aunt  Polly,  have  you 
put  the  irons  on  the  fire  ?  The  first  batch  of  clothes 
is  almost  dry. " 

Aunt  Polly,  an  aged  crone,  already  stumbling  into 
her  dotage,  hobbled  from  the  kitchen  and  gathered 
up  an  armful  of  resinous  pine  from  a  pile  beside  the 
steps.  "Dejr's  'mos'  es  hot  es  de  debbil's  wooden- 
iron  shovel,"  she  replied,  with  one  foot  on  the  step; 
adding  in  a  piercing  whisper:  "I  know  dat  ar  shovel, 
honey,  'caze  de  debbil  he  done  come  fur  me  in  de  daid 
er  de  night,  lookin'  moughty  peart,  too;  but  I  tole  'im 
he  des  better  bide  aw'ile  'caze  I  'uz  leanin'  sorter 
favo'bly  to'ad  de  Lawd.  " 

"Aunt  Polly,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself. 
Take  those  irons  off  and  let  them  cool. " 

"Dat's  so,  Miss  Cynthy,  en  I'se  right  down  'shamed 
er  myse'f,  sho'  'nough,  but  de  shame  er  hit  cyarn  tu'n 
de  heart  er  'ooman.  De  debbil  he  sutney  did  look 
young  en  peart,  dat  he  did — en  de  Lawd  He  knows, 
Miss  Cynthy,  I  allers  did  like  'em  young !  I  'uz  done 
had  nine  un  um  in  all,  count  in'  de  un — en  he  wuz 
Cephus — dat  run  off  'fo'   de  mah'age  wid  my  bes' 


ioo  THE  DELIVERANCE 

fedder  baid  made  outer  de  gray  goose  fedders  ole 
miss  done  throwed  away  'caze  dey  warn'  w'ite.  Yes, 
Lawd,  dar's  done  been  nine  un  urn,  black  en  yaller,  en 
dar  ain'  nuver  been  en  ole  'un  in  de  hull  lot.  Whew ! 
I  ain'  nuver  stood  de  taste  er  nuttin'  ole  lessen  he  be  a 
'possum,  en  w'en  hit  comes  ter  en  ole  man,  I  d'clar  hit 
des  tu'ns  my  stomick  clean  inside  out." 

"But,  Aunt  Polly,  you're  old  yourself — it's  dis- 
graceful. " 

Aunt  Polly  chuckled  with  flattered  vanity. 

"I  know  I  is,  honey — I,  know  I  is,  but  I'se  gwine 
ter  hev  a  young  husban'  at  de  een  ef  hit  tecks  de  ve'y 
las'  cent  I'se  got.  De  las'  un  he  come  monst'ous  high, 
en  mo'n  dat,  he  wuz  sech  en  outlandish  nigger  dat 
he'd  a-come  high  ef  I'd  got  'im  as  a  Christmas  gif.  I 
had  ter  gin  'im  dat  burey  wid  de  bevel  glass  I  bought 
wid  all  my  savin's,  en  des  es  soon  es  I  steps  outside  de 
do'  he  up  en  toted  hit  all  de  way  ter  de  cabin  er  dat 
low-lifeted,  savigorous,  yaller  hussy  Delphy.  Men 
sutney  are  tuh'ble  slippery  folks,  Miss  Cynthy,  en 
y'all  des  better  look  out  how  you  monkey  wid  'em, 
'caze  I'se  done  hednine,  en  I  knows  'em  thoo  enthoo. 
De  mo'  you  git,  de  likelier  'tis  you  gwine  git  one  dat's 
worth  gittin',  dat's  w'at   I  'low." 

Cynthia  gathered  up  the  scattered  garments,  which 
had  been  left  carelessly  from  the  day  before,  and 
carried  them  into  the  kitchen,  where  a  pine  ironing- 
board  was  supported  by  two  empty  barrels.  Lila  was 
busily  preparing  a  bowl  of  gruel  for  one  of  the  sick  old 
Negroes  who  still  lived  upon  the  meager  charity  of 
the   Blakes. 

"Mother  wants  you,  Cynthia,  "  she  said.  " I  won't 
do  at  all,  for  she  can't  be  persuaded  that  I'm  really 


i      CYNTHIA  101 

grown  up,  you  know.  Here,  give  me  some  of  those 
clothes.     It  won't  hurt  my  hands  a  bit. " 

Cynthia  piled  the  clothes  upon  the  board,  and 
moistening  her  finger,  applied  it  to  the  bottom  of  the 
iron.  Then  she  handed  it  to  Lila  with  a  funny  little 
air  of  anxiety.  "This  is  just  right,"  she  said;  "be 
careful  not  to  get  your  fingers  burned,  and  remember 
to  sprinkle  the  clothes  well.  Do  you  know  what 
mother  wants?" 

"I  think  it's  about  taking  something  to  Aunt 
Dinah.     Docia  told  her  she  was  sick." 

"Then  I  wish  Docia  would  learn  to  hold  her  tongue," 
commented  Cynthia,  as  she  left  the  kitchen. 

She  found  Mrs.  Blake  looking  slightly  irritated 
as  she  wound  a  ball  of  white  yarn  from  a  skein  that 
Docia  was  holding  between  her  outstretched  hands. 

"I  hear  Dinah  is  laid  up  with  a  stitch  in  her 
chest,  Cynthia,"  she  said.  "You  must  look  in  the 
medicine  closet  and  give  her  ten  grains  of  quinine 
and  a  drink  of  whisky.  Tell  her  to  keep  well  covered 
up,  and  see  that  Polly  makes  her  hot  flaxseed  tea 
every  two  hours." 

"Lila  is  fixing  her  some  gruel  now,  mother." 

"I  said  flaxseed  tea,  my  dear.  I  am  almost  seventy 
years  old,  and  I  have  treated  three  hundred  servants 
and  seen  sixty  laid  in  their  graves,  but  if  you  think 
you  are  a  better  doctor  than  I  am,  of  course  there's 
nothing  to  be  said.  Docia,  hold  the  yarn  a  little 
tighter." 

"We'll  make  the  flaxseed  tea  at  once,  and  I'll 
carry  it  right  over — a  breath  of  air  will  do  me  good." 

Mrs.  Blake  sighed.  "You  mustn't  stay  too  closely 
with  me,"  she  said;  "you  will   grow  old  before  your 


io2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

time,  I  fear.      As  it  is  you  have  given  up  your  young 
life  to  my  poor  old  one." 

"I  had  nothing  to  give  up,  mother,"  replied  Cynthia 
quietly,  and  in  the  few  words  her  heart's  tragedy  was 
written — since  of  all  lives,  the  saddest  is  the  one  that 
can  find  nothing  worthy  of  renouncement.  There 
were  hours  when  she  felt  that  any  bitter  personal 
past — that  the  recollection  of  a  single  despairing 
kiss  or  a  blighted  love  would  have  filled  her  days  with 
happiness.  What  she  craved  was  the  conscious 
dignity  of  a  broken  heart — some  lofty  memory  that 
she  might  rest  upon  in  her  hours  of  weakness. 

"Well,  you  might  have  had,  my  child,"  returned  her 
mother. 

Cynthia's  only  answer  was  to  smooth  gently  the 
pillows  in  the  eld  lady's  chair.  "If  you  could  learn 
to  lean  back,  dearest,  it  would  rest  you  so,"  she 
said. 

"I  have  never  slouched  in  my  life,"  replied  Mrs. 
Blake  decisively,  "and  I  do  not  care  to  fall  into  the 
habit  in  my  seventieth  year.  When  my  last  hour 
comes,  I  hope  at  least  to  meet  my  God  in  the  attitude 
becoming  a  lady,  and  in  my  day  it  would  have  been 
considered  the  height  of  impropriety  to  loll  in  a  chair 
or  even  to  rock  in  the  presence  of  gentlemen.  Your 
Greataunt  Susannah,  one  of  the  most  modest  women 
of  her  time,  has  often  told  me  that  once,  having 
unfortunately  crossed  her  knees  in  the  parlour  after 
supper,  she  suffered  untold  tortures  from  "budges" 
for  three  mortal  hours  rather  than  be  seen  to  do 
anything  so  indelicate  as  to  uncross  them.  Well, 
well,  ladies  were  ladies  in  those  days,  and  now  Lila 
tells  me  it  is  quite  customary  for  them  to  sit  like 


CYNTHIA  103 

men.  My  blindness  has  spared  me  many  painful 
sights,  I  haven't  a  doubt." 

"Things  have  changed,  dear.  I  wish  they  hadn't. 
I  liked  the  old  days,  too." 

"I'm  glad  at  least  to  hear  you  say  so.  Your 
Aunt  Susannah — and  she  was  the  one  who  danced 
a  minuet  with  General  Lafayette,  you  know — used 
to  say  that  patience  and  humility  became  a  gentle- 
woman better  than  satin  and  fine  lace.  She  was  a 
lady  of  fashion  and  a  great  beauty,  so  I  suppose  her 
opinion  counts  for  something — especially  as  she  was 
noted  for  being  the  proudest  woman  of  her  day,  and 
it  was  said  that  she  never  danced  with  a  gentleman 
who  hadn't  fought  a  duel  on  her  account.  When 
she  went  to  a  ball  it  took  six  small  darkies  to  carry 
her  train,  and  her  escort  was  always  obliged  to  ride 
on  top  of  the  coach  to  keep'  from  rumpling  the 
flounces  of  her  petticoat.  They  always  said  that 
I  had  inherited  something  of  her  face  and  step." 

"I'm  sure  she  was  never  so  beautiful  as  you, 
mother." 

"Ah,  well,  every  one  to  his  taste,  my  child:  and 
I  have  heard  that  she  wore  a  larger  shoe.  However, 
this  is  foolish  chatter,  and  a  waste  of  time.  Go  and 
carry  Dinah  the  medicine,  and  let  me  see  Christopher 
as  soon  as  he  comes  in.  By  the  way,  Cynthia,  have 
you  noticed  whether  he  seeks  the  society  of  ladies  ? 
Do  you  think  it  likely  that  his  affections  are  engaged  ?" 

"No,  no,  not  at  all.  He  doesn't  care  for  girls; 
I'm  sure  of  it." 

"That  seems  very  strange.  Why,  at  his  age,  his 
father  had  been  the  object  of  a  dozen  love  affairs, 
and  been  jilted  twice,  report  went,  though  I  had  my 


io4  THE  DELIVERANCE 

suspicion  from  the  first  that  it  was  the  other  way. 
Certainly  Miss  Peggie  Stuart  (and  he  had  once  been 
engaged  to  her)  went  into  a  decline  immediately 
after  our  marriage — but  in  affairs  of  the  heart,  as  I 
have  mentioned  often  before,  the  only  reliable  wit- 
nesses are  those  who  never  tell  what  they  know. 
Now,  as  for  Christopher,  are  you  quite  sure  he  is  as 
handsome  as  you  say?" 

"Quite,  quite,  he's  splendid — like  the  picture  of 
the  young  David  in  the  Bible." 

"Then  there's  something  wrong.     Does  he  cough?" 

0 

"His  health  seems  perfect." 

"Which  proves  conclusively  that  he  cherishes  a 
secret  feeling.  For  a  man  to  go  twenty-six  years 
without  falling  in  love  means  that  he's  either  a  saint 
or  an  imbecile,  my  dear;  and  for  my  part,  I  declare  I 
don't  know  which  character  sits  worse  upon  a  gentle- 
man. Can  it  be  one  of  the  Morrisons,  do  you  think  ? 
The  youngest  girl  used  to  be  considered  something  of 
a  beauty  by  the  family;  though  she  was  always  too 
namby-pamby  for  my  taste." 

"She's  fifty  by  now,  if  she's  a  day,  mother,  and 
the  only  thing  I  ever  saw  Christopher  do  for  her  was 
to  drive  a  strange  bull  out  of  her  road." 

"Well,  that  sounds  romantic;  but  I  fear,  as  you 
say,  she's  really  too  old  for  him.  How  time  does 
fly!" 

Cynthia  stooped  and  carefully  arranged  the  old 
lady's  feet  upon  the  ottoman.  "There,  now — I'll 
carry  the  medicine  to  Aunt  Dinah,"  she  said,  "and 
be  back  in  plenty  of  time  to  dress  for  supper.  " 

She  found  the  quinine  in  an  old  medicine  chest  in 
the  adjoining  room,  and  went  with  it  to  one  of  the 


CYNTHIA  105 

crumbling  cabins  which  had  formed  part  of  the 
"quarters"  in  the  prosperous  days  of  slavery. 

Aunt  Dinah  insisted  upon  detaining  her  for  a  chat, 
and  it  was  half  an  hour  afterward  that  she  came  out 
again  and  walked  slowly  back  alon.g  the  little  falling 
path.  The  mild  June  breeze  freshened  her  hot  cheeks, 
and  as  she  passed  thoughtfully  between  the  coarse 
sprays  of  yarrow  blooming  along  the  ragged  edges 
of  the  fields  she  felt  her  spirit  freed  from  the  day's 
burden  of  unrest.  What  she  wanted  just  then  was 
to  lie  for  an  hour  close  upon  the  ground,  to  renew  the 
vital  forces  within  her  by  contact  with  the  invigor- 
ating earth — to  feel  Nature  at  friendly  touch  with 
her  lips  and  hands.  She  would  have  liked  to  run 
like  a  wild  thing  through  the  golden  sunshine  lying 
upon  the  yarrow,  following  the  shy  cries  of  the  par- 
tridges that  scattered  at  her  approach — but  there  was 
work  for  her  inside  the  house,  so  she  went  back 
patiently  to  take  it  up. 

As  she  entered  the  little  yard,  she  saw  Tucker 
basking  in  the  sunshine  on  an  old  bench  beside  one  of 
the  damask  rose-bushes,  and  she  crossed  over  and 
stood  for  a  moment  in  the  tall  grass  before  him. 

"You  look  so  happy,  Uncle  Tucker.  How  do  you 
manage  it  ? " 

"  By  keeping  so,  I  reckon,  my  dear.  I  tell  you, 
this  sun  feels  precious  good  on  the  back. " 

She  dropped  limply  on  the  bench  beside  him.  "  Yes, 
it  is  pleasant,  but  I  hadn't  thought  of  it.  " 

"Well,  you'd  think  of  it  often  enough  if  you  were 
in  my  place,"  pursued  Tucker,  always  garrulous,  and 
grateful  for  a  listener.  "I  didn't  notice  things  much 
myself  when  I  was  young.    The  only  sights  that  seemed 


106  THE  DELIVERANCE 

to  count,  somehow,  were  those  I  saw  inside  my  head, 
and  if  you'll  believe  me,  I  used  to  be  moody  and  out 
of  sorts  half  the  time,  just  like  Christopher.  Times 
have  changed  now,  you'll  say,  and  it's  true.  Why, 
I've  got  nothing  to  do  these  days  but  to  take  a  look 
at  things,  and  I  tell  you  I  see  a  lot  now  where  all 
was  a  blank  before.  You  just  glance  over  that  old 
field  and  tell  me  what  you  find." 

Cynthia  followed  the  sweep  of  his  left  arm.  "There's 
first  the  road,  and  then  a  piece  of  fallow  land  that 
ought  to  be  ploughed,"  she  said. 

"Bless  my  soul,  is  that  all  you  see ?  Why,  there  is 
every  shade  of  green  on  earth  in  that  old  field,  and 
almost  every  one  of  blue,  except  azure,  which  you'll 
find  up  in  the  sky.  That  little  bit  of  white  cloud,  no 
bigger  than  my  hand,  is  shaped  exactly  like  an  eagle's 
wing.  I've  watched  it  for  an  hour,  and  I  never  saw 
one  like  it.  As  for  that  old  pine  on  top  the  little 
knoll,  if  you  look  at  it  long  enough  you'll  see  that  it's 
a  great  big  green  cross  raised  against  the  sky. " 

"So  it  is,  "  said  Cynthia,  in  surprise;  "so  it  is. " 

"Then  to  come  nearer,  look  at  that  spray  of  turtle- 
head  growing  by  that  gray  stone — the  shadow  it 
throws  is  as  fine  as  thread  lace,  and  it  waves  in  the 
breeze   just,  like   the   flower." 

"Oh,  it  is  beautiful,  and  I  never  should  have 
seen  it. " 

"And  best  of  all,"  resumed  Tucker,  as  if  avoid- 
ing an  interruption,  "is  that  I've  watched  a  nestful 
of  young  wrens  take  flight  from  under  the  eaves. 
There's  not  a  play  of  Shakespeare's  greater  than 
that,  I  tell  you. " 

"And    it    makes    you    happy — just    this?"    asked 


CYNTHIA  107 

Cynthia  wistfully,  as  the  pathos  of  his  maimed  figure 
drove  to  her  heart. 

"Well,  I  reckon  happiness  is  not  so  much  in  what 
comes  as  in  the  way  you  take  it,"  he  returned,  smil- 
ing. "There  was  a  time,  you  must  remember,  when 
I  was  the  straightest  shot  of  my  day,  and  something 
of  a  lady-killer  as  well,  if  I  do  say  it  who  shouldn't. 
I've  done  my  part  in  a  war  and  I'm  not  ashamed  of  it. 
I've  taken  the  enemy's  cannon  under  a  fire  hot  enough 
to  roast  an  ox,  and  I've  sent  more  men  to  eternity 
than  I  like  to  think  of;  but  I  tell  you  honestly  there's 
no  battle-field  under  heaven  worth  an  hour  of  this  old 
bench.  If  I  had  my  choice  to-day,  I'd  rather  see  the 
flitting  of  those  wrens  than  kill  the  biggest  Yankee 
that  ever  lived.  The  time  was  when  I  didn't  think 
so,  but  I  know  now  that  there's  as  much  life  out  there 
in  that  old  field  as  in  the  tightest-packed  city  street  I 
ever  saw — purer  life,  praise  God,  and  sweeter  to  the 
taste.  Why,  look  at  this  poplar  leaf  that  blew  across 
the  road:  I've  studied  the  pattern  of  it  for  half  an 
hour,  and  I've  found  out  that  such  a  wonder  is  worth 
going  ten  miles  to  see." 

"Oh,  I  can't  understand  you,"  sighed  Cynthia 
hopelessly.  "  I  wish  I  could,  but  I  can't — I  was  born 
different — so  different." 

"Bless  your  heart,  honey,  I  was  born  different 
myself,  and  if  I'd  kept  my  leg  and  my  arm  I  dare  say 
I'd  be  strutting  round  on  one  and  shaking  the  other 
in  the  face  of  God  Almighty  just  as  I  used  to  do. 
A  two-legged  man  is  so  busy  getting  about  the  world 
that  he  never  has  time  to  sit  down  and  take  a  look 
around  him.  I  tell  you  I  see  more  in  one  hour  as  I 
am  now  than  I  saw  in  all  the  rest  of  my  life  when  I 


108  THE  DELIVERANCE 

was  sound  and  whole.  Why,  I  could  sit  here  all  day- 
long and  stare  up  at  that  blue  sky,  and  then  go  to  bed 
feeling  that  my  twelve  hours  were  full  and  brimming 
over.  If  I'd  never  seen  anything  in  my  life  but  that 
sky  above  the  old  pine,  I  should  say  at  the  end  'Thank 
God  for  that  one  good  look.'  " 

"I  can't  understand — I  can't  understand,"  repeated 
Cynthia,  in  a  broken  voice,  though  her  face  shed  a 
clear,  white  beam.  "I  only  know  that  we  are  all  in 
awful  straights,  and  that  to-morrow  is  the  day  when 
I  must  get  up  at  five  o'clock  and  travel  all  the  way 
to  town  to  get  my  sewing." 

He  laid  his  large  pink  hand  on  hers. 

"Why  not  let  Lila  go  for  you  ?" 

"What !  to  wait  like  a  servant  for  the  bundle  and 
walk  the  streets  all  day — I'd  go  twenty  times  first !" 

"My  dear,  you  needn't  envy  me,"  he  responded, 
patting  her  knotted  hand.  "I  took  less  courage  with 
me  when  I  stormed  my  heights." 


CHAPTER  X 

Sentimental  and  Otherwise 

In  the  gray  dawn  Cynthia  came  softly  down- 
stairs and,  passing  her  mother's  door  on  tiptoe,  went 
out  into  the  kitchen  to  begin  preparations  for  her 
early  breakfast.  She  wore  a  severe  black  alpaca 
dress,  made  from  a  cast-off  one  of  her  mother's,  and 
below  her  white  linen  collar  she  had  pinned  a  cameo 
brooch  bearing  the  head  of  Minerva,  which  had  once 
belonged  to  Aunt  Susannah.  On  the  bed  upstairs 
she  had  left  her  shawl  and  bonnet  and  a  pair  of  care- 
fully mended  black  silk  mitts,  for  her  monthly  visits 
to  the  little  country  town  were  endured  with  some- 
thing of  the  frozen  dignity  which  supported  Marie 
Antoinette  in  the  tumbrel.  It  was  a  case  where 
family  pride  was  found  more  potent  than  Christian 
resignation. 

When  she  opened  the  kitchen  door,  with  her  arms 
full  of  resinous  pine  from  the  pile  beside  the  steps, 
she  found  that  Tucker  had  risen  before  her  and  was 
fumbling  awkwardly  in  the  safe  with  his  single  hand. 

"Why,  Uncle  Tucker!"  she  exclaimed  in  surprise, 
"what  on  earth  has  happened?" 

Turning  his  cheerful  face  upon  her,  he  motioned  to 
a  little  wooden  tobacco  box  on  the  bare  table. 

"A  nest  full  of  swallows  tumbled  down  my  chimney 
109 


no  THE  DELIVERANCE 

in  the  night,"  he  explained,  "and  they  cried  so  loud 
I  couldn't  sleep,  so  I  thought  I  might  as  well  get  up 
and  dig  'em  a  worm  or  two.  Do  you  happen  to 
know  where  a  bit  of  wool  is  ?  " 

Cynthia  threw  her  bundle  of  kindling-wood  on  the 
hearth  and  stood  regarding  him  with  apathetic 
eyes.  "You'd  much  better  wring  their  necks,"  she 
responded  indifferently;  "but  there's  a  basketful 
of  wool  Aunt  Polly  has  just  carded  in  the  closet. 
How  in  the  world  did  you  manage  to  dress  yourself?" 

"Oh,  it's  wonderful  what  one  hand  can  do  when 
it's  put  to  it.  Would  you  mind  fastening  my  collar, 
by  the  way,  and  any  buttons  that  you  happen  to 
see  loose  ?" 

She  glanced  over  him  critically,  pulling  his  clothes 
in  place  and  adjusting  a  button  here  and  there.  "I 
do  hate  to  see  you  in  this  old  jean  suit,"  she  said; 
"you  used  to  look  so  nice  in  your  other  clothes." 

With  a  laugh  he  settled  his  empty  sleeve.  "Oh, 
they're  good  for  warm  weather,"  he  responded;  "and 
they  wash  easily,  which  is  something.  Think,  too, 
what  a  waste  it  would  be  to  dress  half  a  man  in  a 
whole  suit  of  broadcloth." 

"Oh,  don't,  don't,"  she  protested,  on  the  point  of 
tears,  but  he  smiled  and  patted  her  bowed  shoulder. 
"I  got  over  that  long  ago,  honey,"  he  said  gently. 
"I  kicked  powerful  hard  with  my  one  foot  at  first, 
but  the  dust  I  raised  wasn't  a  speck  in  the  face  of 
God  Almighty.  There,  there,  we'll  have  a  fine 
sunrise,  and  I'm  going  out  to  watch  it  from  my  old 
bench — unless  you'll  find  something  for  a  single 
hand  to  do." 

She  shook  her  head,  smiling  with  misty  eyes. 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       in 

"You'll  have  breakfast  with  me,  I  suppose,"  she 
said.  "I  got  up  early  because  I  couldn't  sleep,  but 
it's  not  yet  four  o'clock." 

For  an  instant  he  looked  at  her  gravely.  "Worry- 
ing about  the  day?" 

"A  little." 

"If  I  could  only  manage  to  hobble  along  with 
you." 

"Oh,  but  you  couldn't,  dear — and  the  worst  of  it 
is  having  to  wait  so  long  in  town  for  the  afternoon 
stage.  I  get  my  sewing,  and  then  I  eat  my  lunch  on 
the  old  church  steps,  and  then  there  are  four  mortal 
hours  when  I  walk  about  aimlessly  in  the  sun." 

"And  you  wouldn't  go  to  see  anybody?" 

"With  my  bundle  of  work,  and  in  this  alpaca? 
Not  for  worlds !" 

He  sighed,  not  reproachfully,  but  with  the  sym- 
pathy which  projects  itself  into  states  of  feeling 
other  than  its  own. 

"Well,  I  wish  all  the  same  you'd  let  Lila  go  in 
with  you.  I  think  you  make  a  mistake  about  her, 
Cynthia;  she  wouldn't  feel  the  strain  of  it  half  so 
much  as  you  do." 

"But  I'd  feel  it  for  her.  No,  no,  it's  better  as  it  is; 
and  she  does  walk  to  the  cross-roads  with  me,  you 
know.  Old  Jacob  Weatherby  brings  her  back  in 
his  wagon.  Christopher  can't  get  off,  but  he'll 
come  for  me  at  sundown." 

"Are  you  sure  it  isn't  young  Jim  who  fetches  Lila  ?" 

She  frowned.  "If  it  were  young  Jim,  her  going 
would  be  impossible — but  the  old  man  knows  his 
place  and  keeps  it." 

"It's  a  better  place  than  ours  to-day,  I  reckon," 


ii2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

returned  Tucker,  smiling.  "To  an  observer  across 
the  road  I  dare  say  the  odds  would  seem  considerably 
in  his  favour.  I  met  him  in  the  turnpike  last  Sunday 
in  a  brand  new  broadcloth." 

"Oh,  I  can't  bear  to  hear  you,"  returned  Cynthia 
passionately.  "If  we  must  go  to  the  dogs,  for  heaven's 
sake,  let's  go  remembering  that  we  are  Blakes — or 
Corbins,  if  you  like." 

"Bless  your  heart,  child,  I'd  just  as  lief  remember 
I  was  a  Blake — or  even  a  Weatherby,  for  that  matter. 
Why,  Jacob  Weatherby's  grandfather  was  an  honest, 
self-respecting  tiller  of  the  soil  when  mine  used  to 
fish  his  necktie  out  of  the  punch-bowl  every  Saturday 
night,  people  said." 

She  lifted  her  black  skirt  above  her  knees,  and 
pinned  it  tightly  at  her  back  with  a  large  safety  pin 
she  had  taken  from  her  bosom.  Then  kneeling  on 
the  hearth,  she  laid  the  knots  of  resinous  pine  on  a 
crumpled  newspaper  in  the  great  stone  fireplace. 

"I  don't  mind  your  picking  flaws  is.  me,"  she  said 
dryly,  "but  I  do  wish  you  would  let  my  great  grand- 
father rest  in  his  grave.     He's  about  all  I've  got." 

"Well,  I  beg  his  pardon  for  speaking  the  truth 
about  him,"  returned  Tucker  penitently;  "and  now 
my  swallows  are  so  noisy  I  must  stop  their  mouths." 

He  went  out  humming  a  tune,  while  Cynthia  hung 
the  boiler  from  the  crane  and  mixed  the  corn-meal 
dough  in  a  wooden  tray. 

When  breakfast  was  on  the  table  Lila  appeared 
with  a  reproachful  face,  hurriedly  knotting  her 
kerchief  as  she  entered. 

"Oh,  Cynthia,  you  promised  to  let  me  get  break- 
fast,"   she    said.      "Mother    was    very    restless    all 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       113 

night — she  dreamed  that  she  was  being  married  over 
again — so  I  slept  too  late." 

"It  didn't  matter,  dear;  I  was  awake,  and  I  didn't 
mind  getting  up.     Are  you  ready  to  go?" 

"All  except  my  hat."  Yawning  slightly,  she 
raised  her  hands  and  pushed  up  her  clustering  hair 
that  was  but  a  shade  darker  than  Christopher's. 
Trivial  as  the  likeness  was,  it  began  and  ended  with 
her  heavy  curls,  for  her  hazel  eyes  held  a  peculiar 
liquid  beam,  and  her  face,  heart-shaped  in  outline, 
had  none  of  the  heaviness  of  jaw  which  marred 
the  symmetry  of  his.  A  little  brown  mole  beside 
the  dimple  in  her  cheek  gave  the  finishing  touch 
of  coquetry  to  the  old-world  quaintness  of  her 
appearance. 

As  she  passed  the  window  on  her  way  to  the  table 
she  threw  a  drowsy  glance  out  into  the  yard. 

"Why,  there's  Uncle  Tucker  sitting  on  the  ground," 
she  said;  "he  must  be  crazy." 

Cynthia  was  pouring  the  hastily  made  coffee  from 
the  steaming  boiler,  and  she  did  not  look  up  as  she 
answered. 

"You'd  better  go  out  and  help  him  up.  He's 
digging  worms  for  some  swallows  that  fell  down  his 
chimney."  ( 

"Well,  of  all  the  ideas  !"  exclaimed  Lila,  laughing, 
but  she  went  out  with  cheerful  sweetness  and  assisted 
him  to  his  crutches. 

A  half-hour  later,  when  the  meal  was   over  and 

^Christopher   had   gone    out   to   the    stable,    the   two 

women  tied  ort  their  bonnets  and  went  softly  through 

the   hall.     As   they   passed    Mrs.    Blake's    door   she 

awoke  and  called  out  sharply. 


ii4  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Cynthia,  is  that  you?  What  are  you  doing  up  so 
early?" 

Cynthia  paused  at  strained  attention  on  the 
threshold. 

"I'm  going  to  the  Morrisons',  mother,  to  spend 
the  day.  You  know  I  told  you  Miss  Martha  had 
promised  to  teach  me  that  new  fancy  stitch." 

"But,  my  dear,  surely  it  is  bad  manners  to  arrive 
before  eleven  o'clock.  I  remember  once  when  I 
was  a  girl  that  we  went  over  to  Meadow  Hall  before 
ten  in  the  morning,  and  found  old  Mrs.  Dudley  just 
putting  on  her  company  cap." 

"But  they  begged  me  to  come  to  breakfast,  dear." 

"Well,  customs  change,  of  course;  but  be  sure  to 
take  Mrs.  Morrison  a  jar  of  the  green  tomato  catchup. 
You  know  she  always  fancied  it." 

"Yes,  yes;  good-by  till  evening." 

She  moved  on  hurriedly,  her  clumsy  shoes  creaking 
on  the  bare  planks,  and  a  moment  afterward  as  the 
door  closed  behind  them  they  passed  out  into  the 
first  sunbeams.  Beyond  the  whitewashed  fence 
the  old  field  was  silvered  by  the  heavy  dew,  and 
above  it  the  great  pine  towered  like  a  burnished 
cross  upon  the  western  sky.  To  the  eastward  a 
solitary  thrush  was  singing — a  golden  voice  straight 
from  out  the  sunrise. 

"This  is  worth  getting  up  for  !"  said  Lila,  with  a 
long,  joyful  breath;  and  she  broke  into  a  tender 
carolling  as  spontaneous  as  the  bird's.  The  bloom 
of  the  summer  was  in  her  face,  and  as  she  movec^ 
with  her  buoyant  step  along  the  red  clay  road  she  was 
like  a  rare  flower  blown  lightly  by  the  wind.  To 
Cynthia's    narrowed    eyes    she    seemed,    indeed,    a 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       115 

heroine  descended  from  old  romance — a  maiden  to 
whom,  even  in  these  degenerate  modern  days,  there 
must  at  last  arrive  a  noble  destiny.  That  Lila  at 
the  end  of  her  twenty-six  years  should  have  wearied 
of  her  long  waiting  and  grown  content  to  compro- 
mise with  fate  would  have  appeared  to  her  impossible 
— as  impossible  as  the  transformation  of  young  Jim 
Weatherby  into  the  fairy  prince. 

"Hush  !"  she  said  suddenly,  shifting  her  bundle  of 
sewing  from  one  arm  to  the  other;  "there's  a  wagon 
turning  from  the  branch  road." 

They  had  reached  the  first  bend  beyond  the  gate, 
and  as  they  rounded  the  long  curve,  hidden  by 
honey-locusts,  a  light  spring  wagon  came  rapidly 
toward  them,  with  Jim  Weatherby,  in  his  Sunday 
clothes,  on  the  driver's  seat. 

"Father's  rheumatism  is  so  bad  he  couldn't  get 
out  to-day,"  he  explained,  as  he  brought  the  horses 
to  a  stand;  "so  as  long  as  I  had  to  take  the  butter 
over,  I  thought  I  might  save  you  the  five  miles." 
He  spoke  to  Cynthia,  and  she  drew  back  stiffly. 

"It  is  a  pleasant  day  for  a  walk,"  she  returned  dryly. 

"But  it's  going  to  be  hot,"  he  urged;  "I  can  tell 
by  the  way  the  sun  licks  up  the  dew."  A  feathery 
branch  of  the  honey-locust  was  in  his  face,  and  he 
pushed  it  impatiently  aside  as  he  looked  at  Lila.  "I 
waited  late  just  to  take  you,"  he  added  wistfully, 
jumping  from  his  seat  and  going  to  the  horses'  heads. 
"Won't  you  get  in?" 

"You  will  be  so  tired,  Cynthia,"  Lila  persuaded. 
"Think  of  the  walking  you  have  to  do  in  town." 

As  Jim  Weatherby  glanced  up  brightly  from  the 
strap  he  was  fastening,  the  smile  in  his  blue  eyes  was 


n6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

like  a  song  of  love ;  and  when  the  girl  met  it  she  heard 
again  the  solitary  thrush  singing  in  the  sunrise. 
"You  will  come?"  he  pleaded,  and  this  time  he  looked 
straight  at  her. 

"Well,  I  reckon  I  will,  if  you're  going  anyway," 
said  Cynthia  at  last;  "and  if  I  drive  with  you  there'll 
be  no  use  for  Lila  to  go — she  can  stay  with  mother." 

"But  mother  doesn't  need  me,"  said  Lila,  in 
answer  to  Jim's  wistful  eyes;  "and  it's  such  a  lovely 
day — after  getting  up  so  early  I  don't  want  to  stay 
indoors." 

Without  a  word  Jim  held  out  his  hand  to  Cynthia, 
and  she  climbed,  with  unbending  dignity,  to  the 
driver's  seat.  "You  know  you've  got  that  dress  to 
turn,  Lila,"  she  said,  as  she  settled  her  stiff  skirt 
primly  over  her  knees. 

"I  can  do  it  when  I  get  home,"  answered  Lila, 
laying  her  hand  on  the  young  man's  arm  and  stepping 
upon  the  wheel.     "Where  shall  I  sit,  Jim?" 

Cynthia  turned  and  looked  at  her  coldly. 

"You'd  be  more  comfortable  in  that  chair  at  the 
back,"  she  suggested,  and  Lila  sat  down  obediently 
in  the  little  split -bottomed  chair  between  a  brown 
stone  jar  of  butter  and  a  basket  filled  with  new-laid 
eggs.  The  girl  folded  her  white  hands  in  the  lap  of 
her  faded  muslin  and  listened  patiently  to  the 
pleasant  condescension  in  Cynthia's  voice  as  she 
discussed  the  belated  planting  of  the  crops.  As  the 
spring  wagon  rolled  in  the  shade  of  the  honey-locusts 
between  the  great  tobacco  fields,  striped  with  vivid 
green,  the  June  day  filled  the  younger  sister's  eyes 
with  a  radiance  that  seemed  but  a  reflection  of  its 
own  perfect  beauty.     Not  once  did  her  lover  turn  from 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       117 

Cynthia  to  herself,  but  she  was  conscious,  sitting 
quietly  beside4  the  great  brown  jar,  that  for  him  she 
filled  the  morning  with  her  presence — that  he  saw  her 
in  the  blue  sky,  in  the  sunny  fields,  and  in  the  long 
red  road  with  the  delicate  shadowing  of  the  locusts. 
In  her  cramped  life  there  had  been  so  little  room  in 
which  her  dreams  might  wander  that  gradually  the 
romantic  devotion  of  her  old  playmate  had  grown  to 
represent  the  measure  of  her  emotional  ideal.  In 
spite  of  her  poetic  face  she  was  in  thought  soundly 
practical,  and  though  the  plain  Cynthia  might  send 
a  fanciful  imagination  in  pursuit  of  the  impossible, 
to  Lila  the  only  destiny  worth  cherishing  at  heart 
was  the  one  that  drew  its  roots  deep  from  the  homely 
soil  about  her.  The  stern  class-distinctions  which 
had  always  steeled  Cynthia  against  the  friendly 
advances  of  her  neighbours  troubled  the  younger 
sister  not  at  all.  She  remembered  none  of  the  past 
grandeur,  the  old  Blake  power  of  rule,  and  the  stories 
of  gallant  indiscretions  and  powdered  beaux  seemed 
to  her  as  worthless  as  the  moth-eaten  satin  rags  which 
filled  the  garret.  She  loved  the  familiar  country 
children,  the  making  of  fresh  butter,  and  honest 
admiration  of  her  beauty;  and  except  for  the  colour- 
less poverty  in  which  they  lived,  she  might  easily 
have  found  her  placid  happiness  on  the  little  farm. 
With  ambition — the  bitter,  agonised  ambition  that 
Cynthia  felt  for  her — she  was  as  unconcerned  as  was 
her  blithe  young  lover  chatting  so  merrily  in  the 
driver's  seat.  The  very  dulness  of  her  imagination 
had  saved  her  from  the  awakening  that  follows 
wasted  hopes. 

"The  tobacco  looks  well,"  Cynthia  was  saying  in 


n8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

her  formal  tones;  "all  it  needs  now  is  a  rain  to  start 
it  growing.  You've  got  yours  all  in  by  now,  I 
Suppose." 

"Oh,  yes;  mine  was  put  in  before  Christopher's," 
responded  Jim,  feeling  instantly  that  the  woman 
beside  him  flinched  at  his  unconscious  use  of  her 
brother's  name. 

"He  is  always  late,"  she  remarked  with  forced 
politeness,  and  the  conversation  dragged  until  they 
reached  the  cross-roads  and  she  climbed  into  the  stage. 

"Be  sure  to  hurry  back,"  were  her  last  words  as 
she  rumbled  off;  and  when,  in  looking  over  her 
shoulder  at  the  first  curve,  she  saw  Lila  lift  her 
beaming  eyes  to  Jim  Weatherby's  face,  the  protest 
of  all  the  dust  in  the  old  graveyard  was  in  the  groan 
that  hovered  on  her  lips.  She  herself  would  have 
crucified  her  happiness  with  her  own  loyal  hands 
rather  than  have  dishonoured  by  so  much  as  an 
unspoken  hope  the  high  excellences  inscribed  upon 
the  tombstones  of  those  mouldered  dead. 

In  her  shabby  black  dress,  with  her  heavy  bundle 
under  her  arm,  she  passed,  a  lonely,  pathetic  figure, 
through  the  streets  of  the  little  town.  The  strange 
smells  fretted  her,  the  hot  bricks  tired  her  feet,  and 
the  jarring  noises  confused  her  hazy  ideas  of  direction. 
On  the  steps  of  the  old  church,  where  she  ate  her 
lunch,  she  found  a  garrulous  blind  beggar  with  whom 
she  divided  her  slender  meal  of  bacon  and  corn- 
bread.  After  a  moment's  hesitation,  she  bought  a 
couple  of  bananas  for  a  few  cents  from  a  fruit-stand 
at  the  corner,  and  coming  back,  gave  the  larger  one 
to  the  beggar  who  sat  complaining  in  the  sun.  Then, 
withdrawing-  to  a  conventional  distance  in  the  shadow 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       119 

of  the  steeple,  she  waited  patiently  for  the  slow 
hours  to  wear  away.  Not  until  the  long  shadow 
pointed  straight  from  west  to  east  did  the  ancient 
vehicle  rattle  down  the  street  and  the  driver  pull 
up  for  her  at  the  old  church  steps.  Then  it  was 
that  with  her  first  sigh  of  relief  she  awoke  to  the 
realisation  that  through  all  the  trying  day  her  heaviest 
burden  was  the  memory  of  Lila's  morning  look  into 
the  face  of  the  man  whose  father  had  been  a  common 
labourer  at  Blake  Hall. 

Three  hours  later,  when,  pale  and  exhausted,  with 
an  aching  head,  she  found  the  stage  halting  beneath 
the  blasted  pine,  her  pleasantest  impression  was  of 
Christopher  standing  in  the  yellow  afterglow  beside 
the  old  spring  wagon.  The  driver  spoke  to  him, 
and  then,  as  the  horses  stopped",  turned  to  toss  the 
weather-beaten  mail-bag  to  the  porch  of  the  country 
store,  where  a  group  of  men  were  lounging.  Among 
them  Cynthia  saw  the  figure  of  a  girl  in  a  riding 
habit,  who,  as  the  stage  halted,  gathered  up  her 
long  black  skirt  and  ran  hastily  to  the  roadside  to 
speak  to  some  one  who  remained  still  seated  in  the 
vehicle. 

That  Christopher's  eyes  followed  the  graceful 
figure  in  its  finely  fitting  habit  Cynthia  noticed  with 
a  sudden  jealous  pang,  detecting  angrily  the  warmth 
of  the  admiration  in  his  gaze.  The  girl  had  met  his 
look,  she  knew,  for  when  she  lifted  her  face  to  her 
companion  it  was  bright  with  a  winter's  glow,  though 
the  day  was  warm.  She  spoke  almost  breathlessly, 
too,  as  if  she  had  been  running,  and  Cynthia  over- 
hearing her  first  low  words,  held  her  prim  skirt  aside, 
and    descended    awkwardly    over    the    wheel.     She 


i2o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stumbled  in  reaching  the  ground,,  and  the  girl  with  a 
kindly  movement  turned  to  help  her. 
<•  "I  hope  you  aren't  hurt,"  she  said  in  crisp,  clear- 
cut  tones;  but  the  elder  woman,  recovering  herself 
with  an  effort,  passed  on  after  an  ungracious  bow. 

When  she  reached  Christopher  he  was  still  standing 
motionless  beside  the  wagon,  and  at  her  first  words 
he  started  like  one  awaking  from  a  pleasant  day- 
dream. 

"So  you  came,  after  all,"  he  remarked  in  an 
absent-minded  manner. 

"Of  course  I  came."  She  was  conscious  that  she 
almost  snapped  the  reply.  "Did  you  expect  me  to 
spend  the  night  in  town  ?" 

"In  town?  Hardly."  He  laughed  gaily  as  he 
helped  her  into  the  wagon;  then,  with  the  reins  in  his 
hands,  he  turned  for  a  last  glance  at  the  stage. 
"Why,  what  did  you  think  I  was  waiting  for?" 

"What  you  are  waiting  for  now  is  more  to  the 
purpose,"  she  retorted,  pressing  her  fingers  upon  her 
aching  temples.  "The  afterglow  is  fading;  come, 
get  in." 

Without  a  word  he  seated  himself  beside  her,  and 
as  he  touched  the  horses  lightly  with  the  whip  the 
wagon  rolled  between  the  green  tobacco  fields. 

"How  delicious  the  wild  grape  is !"  exclaimed 
Cynthia,  drawing  her  breath,  "I  hope  the  horses 
aren't  tired.     Have  they  been  at  the  plough?" 

"Not  since  dinner  time."  It  was  clear  that  his 
mind  was  still  abstracted,  and  he  kept  his  face 
turned  toward  the  pale  red  line  that  lingered  on  the 
western  horizon. 

"This  is  a  queer  kind  of  life,"  he  said  presently, 


SENTIMENTAL  AND  OTHERWISE       121 

still  looking  away  from  her.  "We  are  so  poor  and 
so  shut  in  that  we  have  no  idea  what  people  of  the 
world  are  really  like.  That  girl  out  there  at  the 
cross-roads,  now,  she  was  different  from  any  one  I'd 
ever  seen.     Did  you  hear  where  she  came  from  ?" 

"I  didn't  ask,"  Cynthia  replied,  compressing  her 
lips.     "I  didn't  like  the  way  she  stared." 

"Stared?     At  you?" 

"No,  at  you.  I'm  glad  you  didn't  notice  it.  It 
was  bold,  to  say  the  least." 

Throwing  back  his  head,  he  laughed  with  boyish 
merriment ;  and  she  saw,  as  he  turned  his  face  toward 
her,  that  his  heavy  hair  had  fallen  low  across  his  fore- 
head, giving  him  a  youthful  look  that  became  him 
strangely.  At  the  instant  she  softened  in  her  judg- 
ment of  the  unknown  woman  at  the  cross-roads. 

"Why,  she  thought  I  was  some  queer  beast  of 
burden,  I  reckon,"  he  returned — "some  new  farm 
animal  that  made  her  a  little  curious.  Well,  who- 
ever she  may  be,  she  walked  as  if  she  felt  herself  a 
princess." 

Cynthia  snorted.  "Her  habit  fitted  her  like  a 
glove,"  was  her  comment,  to  which  she  added  after 
a  pause:  "As  things  go,  it's  just  as  well  you  didn't 
hear  what  she  said,  I  reckon." 

"About  me,  do  you  mean?" 

"She  came  down  to  meet  another  girl,"  pursued 
Cynthia  coolly.  "I  was  getting  out,  so  I  don't  sup- 
pose they  noticed  me — a  shabby  old  creature  with  a 
bundle.  At  any  rate,  when  she  kissed  the  other,  she 
whispered  something  I  didn't  hear,  and  then,  'I've 
seen  that  man  before — look !'  That  was  when  I 
stumbled,    and    that    made    me    catch    the     next: 


122  THE  DELIVERANCE 

'Where  ?'  her  friend  asked  her  quickly,  and  she 
answered— — " 

There  was  a  pause,  in  which  the  warm  dusk  was 
saturated  with  the  fragrance  of  the  grape  blossoms 
on  the  fence. 

"She  answered?"  repeated  Christopher  slowly. 

Cynthia  looked  up  and  down  the  road,  and  then 
gave  the  words  as  if  they  were  a  groan: 

"In  my  dreams." 


BOOK  II 
THE  TEMPTATION 


THE  TEMPTATION 

CHAPTER   I 

The  Romance  That  Might  Have  Been 

WITH  July  there  came  a  long  rain,  and  in 
the  burst  of  sunshine  which  followed  it 
the  young  tobacco  shot  up  fine  and 
straight  and  tall,  clothing  the  landscape  in  a  rich, 
tropical  green. 

From  morning  till  night  the  men  worked  now  in 
the  great  fields,  removing  the  numerous  "suckers" 
from  the  growing  plants,  and  pinching  off  the 
slender  tops  to  prevent  the  first  beginnings  of 
a  flower,  except  where,  at  long  spaces,  a  huge 
pink  cluster  would  be  allowed  to  blossom  and  come 
to  seed. 

Christopher,  toiling  all  day  alone  in  his  own 
field,  felt  the  clear  summer  dawn  break  over  him, 
the  golden  noon  gather  to  full  heat,  and  the 
coming  night  envelop  him  like  a  purple  mist. 
Living,  as  he  did,  so  close  to  the  earth,  him- 
self akin  to  the  strong  forces  of  the  soil,  he  had 
grown  gradually  from  his  childhood  into  a  rare 
physical  expression  of  the  large  freedom  of  natural 
things. 

It  was  an  unusually  hot  day  in  mid-August — the 
125 


i26  THE  DELIVERANCE 

time  of  the  harvest  moon  and  of  the  dreaded 
tobacco  fly— that  he  came  home  at  the  dinner 
hour  to  find  Cynthia  standing,  spent  and  pale, 
beside  the  well. 

"The  sun  is  awful,  Christopher;  I  don't  see  how 
you  bear  it — but  it.  makes  your  hair  the  colour  of 
ripe  wheat.  " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mind  the  sun,  "  he  answered,  laughing 
as  he  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  face  and  stooped  for 
a  drink  from  the  tilted  bucket.  "I'm  too  much 
taken  up  just  now  with  fighting  those  confounded 
tobacco  flies.  They  were  as  thick  as  thieves  last 
night. " 

"Uncle  Boaz  is  going  to  send  the  little  darkies 
out  to  hunt  them  at  sundown,"  returned  Cynthia. 
"I've  promised  them  an  apple  for  every  one  they 
catch. " 

Her  gaze  wandered  over  the  broad  fields,  rich  in 
promise,  and  she  added  after  a  moment,  "Fletcher's 
crop   has    come   on   splendidly." 

"The  more's  the  pity." 

For  a  long  breath  she  looked  at  him  in  silence — 
at  the  massive  figure,  the  face  burned  to  the  colour 
of  terra-cotta,  the  thick,  wheaten-brown  hair — 
then,  with  an  impulsive  gesture,  she  spoke  in  her 
wonderful  voice,  which  held  so  many  possibilities 
of  passion: 

"I  didn't  tell  you,  Christopher,  that  I'd  found 
out  the  name  of  the  girl  at  the  cross-roads.  She 
went  away  the  day  afterward  and  just  got  back 
yesterday. " 

Something  in  her  tone  made  the  young  man  look 
up    quickly,    his   face   paling   beneath   the   sunburn. 


WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN  127 

All  the  boyish  cheerfulness  he  had  worn  of  late  faded 
suddenly   from  his  look. 

"Who  is  she?'"  he  asked. 

"Jim  Weatherby  knew.  He  had  seen  her  several 
times  on  horseback,  and  he  says  she's  Maria  Fletcher, 
that  ugly  little  girl,  grown  up.  She  hates  the  life  here, 
he  says,  and  they  think  she  is  going  to  marry  before 
the  winter.  Fletcher  was  talking  down  at  the  store 
about  a  rich  man  who  is  in  lave  with  her." 

Christopher  stooped  to  finish  his  drink,  and  then 
rose  slowly  to  his  full  height. 

"Well,  one  Fletcher  the  less  will  be  a  good 
riddance,"  he  said  harshly,  as  he  went  into  the 
house. 

In  the  full  white  noon  he  returned  to  the  field, 
working  steadily  on  his  crop  until  the  sunset.  Back 
and  'forth  among  the  tall  green  plants,  waist  deep 
in  their  rank  luxuriance,  he  passed  with  careful 
steps  and  attentive  eyes,  avoiding  the  huge  "sand 
leaves"  spreading  upon  the  ground  and  already 
yellowing  in  the  August  weather.  As  he  searched 
for  the  hidden  "suckers"  along  the  great  juicy 
stalks,  he  removed  his  hat  lest  it  should  bruise 
the  tender  tops,  and  the  golden  sunshine  shone  full 
on  his  bared  head. 

Around  him  the  landscape  swept  like  an  emerald 
sea,  over  which  the  small  shadows  rippled  in 
passing  waves,  beginning  at  the  rail  fence  skirting 
the  red  clay  road  and  breaking  at  last  upon  the 
darker  green  of  the  far-off  pines.  Here  and  there 
a  tall  pink  blossom  rose  like  a  fantastic  sail 
from  the  deep  and  rocked  slowly  to  and  fro  in  the 
summer  wind. 


128  THE  DELIVERANCE 

When  at  last  the  sun  dropped  behind  the  distant 
wood  and  a  red  name  licked  at  the  western  clouds, 
he  still  lingered  on,  dreaming  idly,  while  his  hands 
followed  their  accustomed  task.  Big  green  moths 
hovered  presently  around  him,  seeking  the  deep  rosy 
tubes  of  the  clustered  flowers,  and  alighting  finally 
to  leave  their  danger-breeding  eggs  under  the 
drooping  leaves.  The  sound  of  laughter  floated 
suddenly  from  the-  small  Negro  children,  who 
Were  pursuing  the  tobacco  flies  between  the  furrows. 
He  had  ceased  from  his  work,  and  come  out  into 
the  little  path  that  trailed  along  the  edge  of  the 
field,  when  he  saw  a  woman's  figure,  in  a  gown 
coloured  like  April  flowers,  pass  from  the  new  road 
over  the  loosened  fence-rails.  For  a  breathless 
instant  he  wavered  in  the  path ;  then  turning  squarely, 
he  met  her  questioning  look  with  indifferent  eyes. 
The  new  romance  had  shrivelled  at  the  first  touch 
of  the  old  hatred. 

Maria,  holding  her  skirt  above  her  ruffled  petti- 
coat, stood  midway  of  the  little  trail,  a  single  tobacco 
blossom  waving  over  her  leghorn  hat.  She  was 
no  longer  the  pale  girl  who  had  received  Carraway 
with  so  composed  a  bearing,  for  her  face  and  her 
gown  were  now  coloured  delicately  with  an  April 
bloom. 

"I  followed  the  new  road,"  she  explained,  smiling, 
"and  all  at  once  it  ended  at  the  fence.  Where  can 
I  take  it  up  again?" 

He  regarded  her  gravely.  "The  only  way  you 
can  take  it  up  again  is  to  go  back  to  it,  "  he  answered. 
"It  doesn't  cross  my  land,  you  know,  and — I  beg 
your  pardon — but  I  don't  care  to  have  you  do  so. 


WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN  129 

Besides  staining  your  dress,  you  will  very  likely 
bruise  my  tobacco." 

He  had  never  in  his  life  stood  close  to  a  woman 
who  wore  perfumed  garments,  and  he  felt,  all  at 
once,  that  her  fragrance  was  going  to  his  brain. 
Delicate  as  it  was,  he  found  it  heady,  like  strong 
drink. 

"But  I  could  walk  very  close  to  the  fence,"  said 
the   girl,   surprised. 

"Aren't   you  afraid   of  the  poisonous   oak?" 

"Desperately.  I  caught  it  once  as  a  child.  It 
hurt  so." 

He  shook  his  head  impatiently. 

"Apart  from  that,  there  is  no  reason  why  you 
should  come  on  my  land.  All  the  prettiest  walks 
are  on  the  other  side — and  over  here  the  hounds 
are  taught  to  warn  off  trespassers." 

"Am  I   a  trespasser?" 

"You  are  worse,"  he  replied  boorishly;  "you're 
a  Fletcher." 

"Well,  you're  a  savage,"  she  retorted,  angered  in 
her  turn.  "Is  it  simply  because  I  happen  to  be  a 
Fletcher  that  you  become  a  bear?" 

"Because  you  happen  to  be  a  Fletcher,"  he 
repeated,  and  then  looked  calmly  and  coolly  at  her 
dainty  elegance. 

"And  if  I  were  anybody  else,  I  suppose,  you  would 
let  me  walk  along  that  fence,  and  even  be  polite 
enough  to  keep  the  dogs  from  eating  me  up?" 

' '  If  you  were  anybody  else  and  didn't  injure  my 
tobacco — yes. " 

"But  as  it  is  I  must  keep  away?" 

"All  I  ask  of  you  is  to  stay  on  the  other  side, " 


i3o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"And  if  I  don't?"  she  questioned,  her  spirit  flaring 
up  to  match  with  his,  "and  if  I  don't?" 
v.  All  the  natural  womanhood  within  her  responded 
to  the  appeal  of  his  superb  manhood ;  all  the  fastidious 
refinement  with  which  she  was  overlaid  was  alive 
to  the  rustic  details  which  marred  the  finished  whole 
— to  the  streak  of  earth  across  his  forehead,  to  the 
coarseness  of  his  ill-fitting  clothes,  to  the  tobacco 
juice  staining  his  finger  nails  bright  green. 

On  his  side,  the  lady  of  his  dreams  had  shrunken 
to  a  witch;  and  he  shook  his  head  again  in  an  effort 
to  dispel  the  sweetness  that  so  strangely  moved  him. 

"In  that  case  you  will  meet  the  hounds  one  day 
and  get  your  dress  badly  torn,  I  fear." 

"And  bitten,  probably." 

"Probably." 

"Well,  I  don't  think  it  would  be  worth  it,"  said 
the  girl,  in  a  quiver  of  indignation.  "  If  I  can  help 
it,  I  shall  never  set  my  foot  on  your  land  again." 

"The  wisest  thing  you  can  do  is  to  keep  off,"  he 
retorted 

Turning,  with  an  angry  movement,  she  walked 
rapidly  to  the  fence,  heedless  of  the  poisonous  oak 
along  the  way;  and  Christopher,  passing  her  with 
a  single  step,  lowered  the  topmost  rails  that  she 
might  cross  over  the  more  easily. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  stiffly,  as  she  reached  the 
other  side. 

"It  was  a  pleasure,"  he  responded,  in  the  tone 
his  father  might  have  used  when  in  full  Grecian 
dress  at  the  fancy  ball. 

"You  mean  it  is  a  pleasure  to  assist  in  getting 
rid  of  me?" 


WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN  131 

"What  I  mean  doesn't  matter,"  he  answered 
irritably,  and  added,  "I  wish  to  God  you  were  any- 
body else !" 

At  this  she  turned  and  faced  him  squarely  as  he 
held  the  rails. 

"But  how  can  I  help  being  myself  ? "  she  demanded. 

"You  can't,  and  there's  an  end  of  it." 

"Of  what?" 

"Oh,  of  everything — and  most  of  all  of  the  evening 
at  the  cross-roads." 

"You  saw  me  then?"  she  asked. 

"You  know  I  did,"  he  answered,  retreating  into 
his  rude  simplicity. 

"And  you  liked  me  then?" 

"Then,"  he  laughed — "why,  I  was  fool  enough 
to  dream  of  you  for  a  month  afterward." 

"How  dare  you!"  she  cried. 

"Well,  I  shan't  do  it  again,"  he  assured  her 
insolently. 

"You  can't  possibly  dislike  me  any  more  than  I 
do  you,"  she  remarked,  drawing  back  step  by  step. 
"You're  a  savage,  and  a  mean  one  at  that — but  all 
the  same,  I  should  like  to  know  why  you  began  to 
hate  me." 

He  laid  the  topmost  rail  along  the  fence  and 
turned  away.  "Ask  your  grandfather!"  he  called 
back,  as  he  passed  into  the  tobacco  field,  with  her 
fragrance  still  in  his  nostrils. 

Maria,  on  the  other  side,  walked  slowly  homeward 
along  the  new  road  that  had  ended  so  abruptly. 
Her  lip  trembled,  and,  letting  her  skirt  drag  in  the 
dust,  she  put  up  her  hand  to  suppress  the  first  hint 
of  emotion.     It   angered  her  that  he  had  had   the 


i32  THE  DELIVERANCE 

power  to  provoke  her  so,  and  for  the  moment  the 
encounter  seemed  to  have  bereft  her  of  her  last 
shreds  of  womanly  reserve.  It  was  as  if  a  strong 
wind  had  blown  over  her,  laying  her  bosom  bare, 
and  she  flushed  at  the  knowledge  that  he  had  heard 
the  fluttering  of  her  breath  and  seen  the  indignant 
tears  gather  to  her  eyes — he  a  boorish  stranger  who 
hated  her  because  of  her  name.  For  the  first  time 
in  her  life  she  had  run  straight  against  an  impreg- 
nable prejudice — had  felt  her  feminine  charm  in- 
effectual against  a  stern  masculine  resistance.  She 
was  at  the  age  when  the  artificial  often  outweighs 
the  real — when  the  superficial  manner  with  a  woman 
is  apt  to  be  misunderstood,  and  so  to  her  Christopher 
Blake  now  appeared  stripped  even  of  his  physical 
comeliness:  the  interview  had  left  her  with  an 
impression  of  mere  vulgar  incivility. 

As  she  entered  the  house  she  met  Fletcher  passing 
through  the  hall  with  the  mail-bag  in  his  hand,  and 
a  little  later,  while  she  sat  in  a  big  chair  by  her 
chamber  window,  Miss  Saidie  came  in  and  laid  a 
letter  in  her  lap. 

"It's  from  Mr.  Wyndham,  I  think,  Maria.  Shall 
I  light  a  candle  ?" 

"Not  yet;  it  is  so  warm  I  like  the  twilight." 

"But  won't  you  read  the  letter?" 

"Oh,  presently.     There's  time  enough." 

Miss  Saidie  came  to  the  window  and  leaned  out 
to  sniff  the  climbing  roses,  her  shapeless  figure 
outlined  against  the  purple  dusk  spangled  with 
fireflies.  Her  presence  irritated  the  girl,  who 
stirred  restlessly  in  her  chair. 

"Is  he  coming,  Maria,  do  you  think?" 


WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN  133 

"If  I  let  him — yes." 

"And  he  wants  to  marry  you?" 

The  girl  laughed  bitterly.  "He  hasn't  seen 
me  in  my  home  yet,"  she  answered,  "and  our  vul- 
garity may  be  too  much  for  him.  He's  very  par- 
ticular, you  know." 

The  woman  at  the  window  flinched  as  if  she  had 
been  struck. 

"But  if  he  loves  you,  Maria?" 

"  Oh,  he  loves  me  for  what  isn't  me,"  she  answered, 
"for  my  'culture,'  as  he  calls  it — for  the  gloss  that 
has  been  put  over  me  in  the  last  ten  years." 

"Still  if  you  care  for  him,  dear " 

"I  don't  know — I  don't  know,"  said  Maria,  speak- 
ing in  the  effort  to  straighten  her  disordered  thoughts 
rather  than  for  the  enlightenment  of  Miss  Saidie. 
"I  was  sure  I  loved  him  before  I  came  home — but 
this  place  upsets  me  so — I  hate  it.  It  makes  me 
feel  raw,  crude,  unlike  myself.  When  I  come  back 
here  I  seem  to  lose  all  that  I  have  learned,  and  to 
grow  vulgar,  like  Jinnie  Spade,  at  the  store." 

"Not  like  her,  Maria." 

"Well,  I  ought  to  know  better,  of  course,  but  I 
don't  believe  I  do — not  when  I'm  here." 

"Then  why  not  go  away?  Don't  think  of  us;  we 
can  get  along  as  we  used  to  do.'*, 

"I  don't  think  of  you,"  $aid  the  girl.  "I  don't 
think  of  anybody  in  the  world  except  myself — and 
that's  the  awful  part — that's  the  part  I  hate.  I'm 
selfish  to  the  core,  and  I  know  it." 

"But  you  do  love  Jack  Wyndham?" 

"  Oh,  I  love  him  to  distraction  !  Light  the  candle, 
Aunt  Saidie,  and  let  me  read  his  letter.     I  can  tell 


i34  THE  DELIVERANCE 

you,  word  for  word,  what  is  in  it  before  I  break 
the  seal.  Six  months  ago  I  went  into  a  nutter  at 
fthe  sight  of  his  handwriting.  Six  months  before 
that  I  was  madly  in  love  with  Dick  Bright — and  six 

months  from  to-day Oh,  well,  I  suppose  I  really 

haven't  much  heart  to  know — and  if  I  ever  care  for 
anybody  it  must  be  for  Jack — that's  positive." 

Standing  beside  the  lighted  candle  on  the  bureau, 
she  read  the  letter  twice  over,  and  then  turning 
away,  wrote  her  answer  kneeling  beside  the  big 
chair  at  the  window. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Romance  That  Was 

Waking  in  the  night  she  said  again,  "I  love 
him  to  distraction,"  and  slipping  under  the  dimity- 
curtains  of  the  bed,  sought  his  letter  where  she  had 
left  it  on  the  bureau.  The  full  light  of  the  harvest 
moon  was  in  the  room — a  light  so  soft  that  it  lay 
like  a  yellow  fluid  upon  the  floor.  It  seemed  almost 
as  if  one  might  stoop  and  fill  the  open  palms. 

She  found  the  letter  thrown  carelessly  upon  the 
pincushion,  and  holding  it  to  her  lips,  paused  a  mo- 
ment beside  the  window,  looking  beyond  the  shaven 
lawn  and  the  clustered  oaks  to  where  the  tobacco 
fields  lay  golden  beneath  the  moon.  It  was  such 
a  night  as  seemed  granted  by  some  kindly  deity  for 
the  fulfilment  of  lovers'  vows,  and  the  girl,  stand- 
ing beside  the  open  window,  grew  suddenly  sad,  as 
one  who  sees  a  vision  with  the  knowledge  that  it 
is  not  life.  When  presently  she  went  back  to  bed 
it  was  to  lie  sleepless  until  dawn,  with  the  love  letter 
held  tightly  in  her  hands. 

The  next  day  a  restlessness  like  that  of  fever 
worked  in  her  blood,  and  she  ran  from  turret  to 
basement  of  the  roomy  old  house,  calling  Will  to 
come  and  help  her  find  amusement. 

"Play  ball  with  me,  Will,"  she  said;  "I  feel  as  if 
I  were  a  child  to-day." 

135 


136  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Oh,  it's  no  fun  playing  with  a  girl,"  replied  the 
boy;  "besides,  I  am  going  fishing  in  the  river  with 
'Zebbadee  Blake;  I  shan't  be  back  till  supper,"  and 
shouldering  his  fishing-rod  he  flung  off  with  his  can 
of  worms. 

Miss  Saidie  was  skimming  big  pans  of  milk  in  the 
spring-house,  and  Maria  watched  her  idly  for  a  time, 
growing  suddenly  impatient  of  the  leisurely  way  in 
which  the  spoon  travelled  under  the  yellow  cream. 

"I  don't  see  how  you  can  be  so  fond  of  it,"  she 
said  at  last. 

"Lord,  child,  I  never  could  abide  dairy  work," 
responded  Miss  Saidie,  setting  the  skimmed  pan 
aside  and  carefully  lifting  another  from  the  flat 
stones  over  which  a  stream  of  water  trickled. 

"And  yet  you've  done  nothing  else  all  your  long 
life,"  wondered  Maria. 

"When  it  comes  to  doing  a  thing  in  this  world," 
returned  the  little  woman,  removing  a  speck  of 
dust  from  the  cream  with  the  point  of  the  spoon, 
"I  don't  ask  myself  whether  I  like  it  or  not,  but 
what's  the  best  way  to  get  it  done.  I've  spent 
sixty  years  doing  things  I  wasn't  fond  of,  and  I 
don't  reckon  I'm  any  the  less  happy  for  having 
done  'em  well." 

"But  I  should  be,"  asserted  Maria,  and  then, 
with  her  white  parasol  over  her  bared  head,  she 
started  for  a  restless  stroll  along  the  old  road  under 
the  great  chestnuts. 

She  had  reached  the  abandoned  ice-pond,  and  was 
picking  her  way  carefully  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees, 
when  the  baying  of  a  pack  of  hounds  in  full  cry 
broke  on  her  ears,   and  with  the    nervous    tremor 


THE  ROMANCE  THAT  WAS  137 

she  had  associated  from  childhood  with  the  sound, 
she  stopped  short  in  the  road  and  waited  anxiously 
for  the  hunt  to  pass.  Even  as  she  hesitated,  feeling 
in  imagination  all  the  blind  terror  of  the  pursuit, 
and  determined  to  swing  into  a  chestnut  bough  in 
case  of  an  approach,  a  small  animal  darted  suddenly 
from  around  the  bend  in  the  sunken  road,  and  an 
instant  afterward  the  hounds  in  hot  chase  broke 
from  the  cover.  For  a  single  breath  the  girl, 
dropping  her  parasol,  looked  at  the  lowered  branch; 
then  as  the  small  animal  neared  her  her  glance 
fell,  and  she  saw  that  it  was  a  little  yellow  dog, 
with  hanging  red  tongue  and  eyes  bulging  in  terror. 
From  side  to  side  of  the  red  clay  road  the  creature 
doubled  for  a  moment  in  its  anguish,  and  then 
with  a  spring,  straight  as  the  flight  of  a  homing 
bird,  fled  to  the  shelter  of  Maria's  skirts.  Quick 
as  a  heart-beat  the  girl's  personal  fears  had  vanished, 
and  as  an  almost  savage  instinct  of  battle  awoke 
in  her,  she  stooped  with  a  protecting  movement 
and,  picking  the  small  dog  from  the  ground,  held 
him  high  above  her  head  as  the  hounds  came  on. 
A  moment  before  her  limbs  had  shaken  at  the 
distant  cries;  now  facing  the  immediate  presence  of 
the  danger,  she  felt  the  rage  of  her  pity  flow  like 
an  infusion  of  strong  blood  through  her  veins.  Until 
they  dashed  her  to  the  ground  she  knew  that  she 
would  stand  holding  the  hunted  creature  above 
her  head. 

Like  a  wave  the  pack  broke  instantly  upon  her, 
forcing  her  back  against  the  body  of  the  chestnut, 
and  tearing  her  dress,  at  the  first  blow,  from  her 
bosom   to   the   ground.     She   had   felt   their  weight 


138  THE  DELIVERANCE 

upon  her  breast,  their  hot  breath  full  in  her  face, 
when,  in  the  midst  of  the  confused  noises  in  her 
«  ears,  she  heard  a  loud  oath  that  rang  out  like  a 
shot,  followed  by  the  strokes  of  a  rawhide  whip 
on  living  flesh.  So  close  came  the  lash  that  the 
curling  end  smote  her  cheek  and  left  a  thin  flame 
from  ear  to  mouth.  The  lessening  sounds  became 
all  at  once  like  the  silence;  and  when  the  hounds, 
beaten  back,  slunk,  whimpering,  to  heel,  she  lowered 
her  eyes  until  she  looked  straight  into  the  face  of 
Christopher  Blake. 

"My  God!  You  have  pluck!"  he  said,  and  his 
face  was  like  that  of  a  dead  man. 

Still  holding  the  dog  above  her  head,  she  lay 
motionless  against  the  body  of  the  tree.  "Drive 
the  beasts  away,"  she  pleaded  like  a  frightened 
child.  Without  a  word  he  turned  and  ordered 
the  hounds  home,  and  they  crawled  obediently 
back  along  the  sunken  road.  Then  he  looked  at 
her  again. 

"I  saw  them  start  the  dog  on  my  land,"  he  said, 
"and  I  ran  across  the  field  as  soon  as  I  could  find 
my  whip.  If  I  hadn't  come  up  when  I  did  they 
would  have  torn  you  to  pieces.  Not  another  man 
in  the  world  could  have  brought  them  in.  Look 
at  your  dress." 

Glancing  down,  she  followed  the  long  slit  from 
bosom   to   hem. 

"I   hate  them!"   she  exclaimed  fiercely. 

"So  it  was  your  dog  they  started?" 

"Mine!"  She  lowered  the  yellow  cur,  holding 
him  close  in  her  arms,  where  he  nestled  shivering. 
"I    never   saw    him   before,    but    he's   mine    now;    I 


THE  ROMANCE  THAT  WAS  139 

saved  him.  I  shall  name  him  Agag,  because  the 
bitterness  of  death  is  past." 

"Well,  rather Look  here,"  he  burst  out  im- 
pulsively, "you've  got  the  staunchest  pluck  I  ever 
saw.  I  never  knew  a  man  brave  enough  to  stand 
up  against  those  hounds — and  you — why,  I  don't 
believe  you  flinched  an  eyelash,  and — by  George — 
the  dog  wasn't  yours  after  all." 

"As  if  that  made  a  difference!"  she  flashed  out. 
"Why,  he  ran  to  me  for  help — and  they  might 
have  killed  me,  but  I'd  never  have  given  him  up." 

"I  believe  you,"  he  declared. 

She  was  conscious  of  a  slight  thrill  that  passed 
quickly,  leaving  her  white  and  weak.  "I  feel 
tired,"  she  said,  pressing  hard  against  the  tree. 
"Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  pick  up  my  parasol?" 

"Tired!"  he  exclaimed,  and  after  a  moment, 
"Your  face  is  hurt — did  the  dogs  do  it?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "You  struck  me  with  your 
whip." 

"Is  that  so?  I  can't  say  after  this  that  I  never 
lifted  my  hand  against  a  woman — but  harsh  measures 
are  sometimes  necessary,  I  reckon.     Does  it  smart?" 

She  touched  the  place  lightly.  "Oh,  it's  no 
matter!"  she  returned.  "I  suppose  I  ought  really 
to  thank  you  for  taking  the  trouble  to  save  my  life — 
but  I  don't,  because,  after  all,  the  hounds  are  yours, 
you  know." 

"Yes,  I  know;  and  they're  good  hounds,  too,  in 
their  way.     The  dog  had  no  business  on  their  land." 

"And  they're  taught  to  warn  off  trespassers? 
Well,  I  hardly  fancy  their  manner  of  conveying 
the  hint," 


i4o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"It  is  sometimes  useful,  all  the  same." 

"Ah,  in  case  of  a  Fletcher,  I  presume." 
,    "In    case    of   a    Fletcher,"    he   repeated,    his    face 
darkening.      "Do  you  know  I  had  entirely  forgotten 
who  you  were  ? ' ' 

"It's  time  you  were  remembering  it,"  she  returned, 
"for  I  am  most  decidedly  a  Fletcher." 

For  an  instant  he  scowled  upon  her. 

"Then  you  are  most  decidedly  a  devil,"  was  his 
retort,  as  he  stooped  to  pick  up  her  parasol  from 
the  road.  "There's  not  much  left  of  it,"  he  remarked, 
handing  it  to  her. 

"As  things  go,  I  dare  say  I  ought  to  be  grateful 
that  they  spared  the  spokes,"  she  said  impatiently. 
"It  does  seem  disagreeable  that  I  can't  go  for  a 
short  stroll  along  my  own  road  without  the  risk  of 
having  my  clothes  torn  from  my  back.  You  really 
must  keep  your  horrid  beasts  from  becoming  a 
public  danger." 

"They  never  chase  anything  that  keeps  off  my 
farm,"  he  replied  coolly.  "There's  not  so  well 
trained  a  pack  anywhere  in  the  county.  No  other 
dogs  around  here  could  have  been  beaten  back  at 
the  death." 

"I  fear  that  doesn't  afford  me  the  gratification 
you  seem  to  feel — particularly  as  the  death  you 
allude  to  would  have  been  mine.  I  suppose  I  ought 
to  be  overpowered  with  gratitude  for  the  whole 
thing,  but  unfortunately  I'm  not.  I  have  had  a 
very  unpleasant  experience  and  I  can't  help  feeling 
that  I  owe  it  to  you." 

"You're  welcome  to  feel  about  it  anyway  you 
please,"    he   responded,    as   Maria,   tucking  the   dog 


THE  ROMANCE  THAT  WAS  141 

under  her  arm,  started  down  the  road  to  the  Hall, 
the  tattered  parasol   held  straight   above  her  head. 

At  the  house  she  carried  Agag  to  her  room,  where 
she  spent  the  afternoon  in  the  big  chair  by  the  window. 
Miss  Saidie,  coming  in  with  her  dinner,  inquired  if 
she  were  sick,  and  then  picked  up  the  torn  dress 
from  the  bed. 

"Why,   Maria,   how  on  earth  did  you  do  it?" 

"Some  hounds  jumped  on  me  in  the  road." 

"Well,  I  never!  They  were  those  dreadful  Blake 
beasts,  I  know.  I  declare,  I'll  go  right  down  and 
speak  to  Brother  Bill  about  'em." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  don't,"  protested  the  girl. 
"We've  had  quarrelling  enough  as  it  is- — and,  tell 
me,  Aunt  Saidie,  have  you  ever  known  what  it 
was  all  about?" 

Miss  Saidie  was  examining  the  rent  with  an  eye 
to  a  possible  mending,  and  she  did  not  look  up  as 
she  answered.  "I  never  understood  exactly  myself, 
but  your  grandpa  says  they  squandered  all  their 
money  and  then  got  mad  because  they  had  to  sell 
the  place.     That's  about  the  truth  of  it,  I  reckon." 

"The    Hall   belonged   to   them   once,    didn't   it?" 

"  Oh,  a  long  time  ago,  when  they  were  rich.  Sakes 
alive,   Maria,   what's  the  matter  with   your  face?" 

"I  struck  it  getting  away  from  the  hounds.  It's 
too  bad,  isn't  it  ?  And  Jack  coming  so  soon,  too. 
Do  I  look  very  ugly?" 

"You're  a  perfect  fright  now,  but  I'll  fix  you  a 
liniment  to  draw  the  bruise  away.  It  will  be  all 
right  in  a  day  or  two.  I  declare,  if  you  haven't 
gone  and  brought  a  little  po' -folksy  yellow  dog 
into  the  house." 


142  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Maria  was  feeding  Agag  with  bits  of  chicken  from 
her  plate,  bending  over  him  as  he  huddled  against 
her   dress. 

"I  found  him  in  the  road,"  she  returned,  "and 
I'm  going  to  keep  him.  I  saved  him  from  the 
hounds." 

"Well,  it  seems  to  me  you  might  have  got  a 
prettier  one,"  remarked  Miss  Saidie,  as  she  went 
down  to  mix  the  liniment. 

It  was  several  mornings  after  this  that  Fletcher, 
coming  into  the  dining-room  where  Maria  sat  at  a 
late  breakfast,  handed  her  a  telegram,  and  stood 
waiting  while  she  tore  it  open. 

"Jim  Weatherby  brought  it  over  from  the  cross- 
roads," he  said.     "It  got  there  last  night." 

"I  hope  there's  nobody  dead,  child,"  observed 
Miss  Saidie,  from  the  serving-table,  where  she  was 
peeling  tomatoes. 

"More  likely  it  points  to  a  marriage,  eh,  daughter ? " 
chuckled   Fletcher  jocosely. 

The  girl  folded  the  paper  and  replaced  it  carefully  v 
in    the     envelope.      "It's    from    Jack    Wyndham," 
she  said,  "and  he  comes  this  evening.     May  I  take 
the  horses  to  the  cross-roads,  grandpa?" 

"Well,  I  did  have  a  use  for  them,"  responded 
Fletcher,  in  high  good-nature,  "but,  seeing  as  your 
young  fellow  doesn't  come  every  day,  I  reckon 
I'll  let  you  have  'em  out." 

Maria  flinched  at  his  speech;  and  then  as  the 
clear  pink  spread  evenly  in  her  cheeks,  she  spoke  in 
her  composed  tones.  "I  may  as  well  tell  you, 
grandpa,  that  we  shall  marry  almost  immediately," 
she  said. 


CHAPTER  III 

Fletcher's    Move    and    Christopher's    Counter- 
stroke 

Not  until  September,  when  he  lounged  one  day 
with  a  glass  of  beer  in  the  little  room  behind  Tom 
Spade's  country  store,  did  Christopher  hear  the 
news  of  Maria's  approaching  marriage.  It  was  Sol 
Peterkin  who  delivered  it,  hiccoughing  in  the  envelop- 
ing smoke  from  several  pipes,  as  he  sat  astride  an 
overturned  flour  barrel  in  one  corner. 

"I  jest  passed  a  wagonload  of  finery  on  the  way 
to  the  Hall,"  he  said,  bulging  with  importance. 
"It's  for  the  gal's  weddin',  I  reckon;  an'  they  do 
say  she's  a  regular  Jezebel  as  far  as  clothes  go.  I 
met  her  yestiddy  with  her  young  man  that  is  to  be, 
an'  the  way  she  was  dressed  up  wasn't  a  sight  for 
modest  eyes.  Not  that  she  beguiled  me,  suh,  though 
the  devil  himself  might  have  been  excused  for 
mistakin'  her  for  the  scarlet  woman — but  I'm  past 
the  time  of  life  when  a  man  wants  a  woman  jest  to 
set  aroun'  an'  look  at.  I  tell  you  a  good  workin' 
pair  of  hands  goes  to  my  heart  a  long  ways  sooner 
than  the  blackest  eyes  that  ever  oggled. " 

"Well,  my  daughter  Jinnie  has  been  up  thar 
sewin'  for  a  month,  "  put  in  Tom  Spade,  a  big,  greasy 
man,  who  looked  as  if  he  had  lived  on  cabbage  from 

i43 


i44  THE  DELIVERANCE 

his  infancy,  "an'  she  says  that  sech  a  sight  of  lace 
she  never  laid  eyes  on.  Why,  her  very  stockin's 
have  got  lace  let  in  'em,  Jinnie  says." 

"  Now,  that's  what  I  call  hardly  decent,  "  remarked 
Sol,  as  he  spat  upon  the  dirty  floor.  "Them's  the 
enticin'  kind  of  women  that  a  fool  hovers  near  an' 
a  wise  man  fights  shy  of.  Lace  in  her  stockin's  ! 
Well,  did  anybody  ever?" 

"She's  got  a  pretty  ankle,  you  may  be  sho'," 
observed  Matthew  Field,  a  long  wisp  of  a  man  who 
had  married  too  early  to  repent  it  too  late,  "an'  I 
must  say,  if  it  kills  me,  that  I  always  had  a  sharp 
eye  for  ankles. " 

"It's  a  pity  you  didn't  look  as  far  up  as 
the  hand,"  returned  Tom  Spade,  with  boisterous 
mirth.  "I  have  heard  that  Eliza  lays  hers  on  right 
heavy. " 

"That's  so,  suh,  that's  so,"  admitted  Matthew, 
puffing  smoke  like  a  shifting  engine,  "but  that's  the 
fault  of  the  marriage  service,  an'  I'll  stand  to  it  at 
the  Judgment  Day — yes,  suh,  in  the  very  presence 
of  Providence  who  made  it.  I  tell  you,  'twill  I  led 
that  woman  to  the  altar  she  was  the  meekest-mouthed 
creetur  that  ever  wiggled  away  from  a  kiss.  Why, 
when  I  stepped  on  her  train  jest  as  I  swung  her  up 
the  aisle,  if  you  believe  me,  all  she  said  was,  '  I  hope 
you  didn't  hurt  yo'  foot';  an',  bless  my  boots,  ten 
minutes  later,  comin'  out  of  church,  she  whispered 
in  my  year,  'You  white-livered,  hulkin'  hound,  you, 
get  off  my  veil!'  Well,  well,  it's  sad  how  the 
ceremony  can  change  a  woman's  heart." 

"That  makes  it  safer  always  to  choose  a  widow," 
commented  Sol.     "Now,  they   do  say  that  this  is 


FLETCHER'S  MOVE  145 

a  fine  weddin'  up  at  the  Hall — but  I  have  my  doubts. 
Them  lace  let  in  stockin's  ain't  to  my  mind." 

"What's  the  rich  young  gentleman  like?"  inquired 
Tom  Spade,  with  interest.  "Jinnie  says  he's  the 
kind  of  man  that  makes  kissin'  come  natural — but 
I  can't  say  that  that  conveys  much  to  the  father  of 
a  family. " 

"Oh,  he's  the  sort  that  looks  as  if  God  Almighty 
had  put  the  fmishin'  touches  an'  forgot  to  make  the 
man,"  replied  Sol.  "He's  got  a  mustache  that 
you  would  say  went  to  bed  every  night  in  curl 
papers. " 

Christopher  pushed  back  his  chair  and  drained 
his  glass  standing,  then  with  a  curt  nod  to  Tom 
Spade  he  went  out  into  the  road. 

It  was  the  walk  of  a  mile  from  the  store  to  his 
house,  and  as  he  went  on  he  fell  to  examining  the 
tobacco,  which  appeared  to  ripen  hour  by  hour  in 
the  warm,  moist  season.  There  was  no  danger  of 
frost  as  yet,  and  though  a  little  of  Fletcher's  crop 
had  already  been  cut,  the  others  had  left  theirs  to 
mature  in  the  favourable  weather.  From  a  clear 
emerald  the  landscape  had  changed  to  a  yellowish 
green,  and  the  huge  leaves  had  crinkled  at  the  edges 
like  shirred  silk.  Here  and  there  pale-brown  splotches 
on  a  plant  showed  that  it  had  too  quickly  ripened,  or 
small  perforations  revealed  the  destructive  presence 
of  a  hidden  tobacco  worm. 

As  Christopher  neared  the  house  the  hounds 
greeted  him  with  a  single  bay,  and  the  cry  brought 
Cynthia  hastily  out  upon  the  porch  and  along  the 
little  path.  At  the  gate  she  met  him,  and  slipping 
her  hand  under  his  arm,  drew  him  across  the  road 


i46  THE  DELIVERANCE 

to  the  rail  fence  that  bordered  the  old  field.  At 
sight  of  her  tearless  pallor  his  ever-present  fear  shot 
tip,  and  without  waiting  for  her  words  he  cried  out 
quickly :  "Is  mother  ill ? ' ' 

"No,  no,  "  she  answered,  "oh,  no;  but,  Christopher, 
it  is  the  next  worse  thing." 

He  thought  for  a  breath.  "Then  she  has  found 
out?" 

"It's  not  that  either,"  she  shook  her  head.  "Oh, 
Christopher,  it's  Fletcher!" 

"It's  Fletcher!  What  in  thunder  have  we  to 
do  with  Fletcher?" 

"You  remember  the  deed  of  trust  on  the  place — 
— the  three  hundred  dollars  we  borrowed  when 
mother  was  sick.  Fletcher  has  bought  it  from  Tom 
Spade  and  he  means  to  foreclose  it  in  a  week.  He 
has  advertised  the  farm  at  the  cross-roads." 

He  paled  with  anger.  "Why,  I  saw  Tom  about 
it  three  days  ago, "  he  said,  striking  the  rotten  fence- 
rail  until  it  broke  and  fell  apart;  "he  told  me  it  could 
run  on  at  the  same  interest." 

"It's  since  then  that  Fletcher  has  bought  it.  He 
meant  it  as  a  surprise,  of  course,  to  drive  us  out 
whether  or  no,  but  Sam  Murray  came  straight  up  to 
tell  you." 

He  stood  thinking  hard,  his  eyes  on  the  waving 
goldenrod  in  the  old  field. 

"I'll  sell  the  horses,"  he  said  at  last. 

"And  starve?  Besides,  they  wouldn't  bring  the 
money. " 

"Then  we'll  sell  the  furniture — every  last  stick! 
We'll  sell  the  clothes  from  our  backs — I'll  sell  myself 
into  slavery  before  Fletcher  shall  beat  me  now!" 


FLETCHER'S  MOVE  147 

"We've  sold  all  we've  got,  "  said  Cynthia;  "the  old 
furniture  is  too  heavy — all  that's  left;  nobody  about 
here  wants  it. " 

"I  tell  you  I'll  find  those  three  hundred  dollars 
if  I  have  to  steal  them.  I'd  rather  go  to  prison  than 
have  Fletcher  get  the  place." 

"Then  he'd  have  it  in  the  end,"  remarked  Cynthia 
hopelessly;  adding  after  a  pause,  "I've  thought  it 
all  out,  dear,  and  we  must  steal  the  money — we 
must  steal  it  from  mother." 

"From  mother!"  he  echoed,  touched  to  the  quick. 

"You  know  her  big  diamond,"  sobbed  the 
woman,  "the  one  in  her  engagement  ring,  that  she 
never  used  to  take  off,  even  at  night,  till  her  fingers 
got  so  thin. " 

"Oh,  I  couldn't!"  he  protested. 

"There's  no  other  way, "  pursued  Cynthia,  without 
noticing  him.  "Surely,  it  is  better  than  having 
her  turned  out  in  her  old  age— surely,  anything  is 
better  than  that.  We  can  take  the  ring  to-night 
after  she  goes  to  bed,  and  pry  the  diamond  from 
the  setting;  it  is  held  only  by  gold  claws,  you  know. 
Then  we  will  put  in  it  the  piece  of  purple  glass  from 
Docia's  wedding  ring — the  shape  is  the  same;  and 
she  will  never  find  it  out— —  Oh,  mother  !  mother  ! " 

"I  can't,"  returned  Christopher  stubbornly;  "it 
is  like  robbing  her,  and  she  so  blind  and  helpless. 
I  cannot  do  it.  " 

"Then  I  will,"  said  Cynthia  quietly,  and,  turning 
from  him,  she  walked  rapidly  to  the  house. 

Later  that  night,  when  he  had  gone  up  to  his  little 
garret  loft,  she  came  to  him  with  the  two  rings  in 
her  outstretched  hand — the  superb  white  diamond 


i48  THE  DELIVERANCE 

and  the  common  purple  setting  in  Docia's  brasi 
hoop. 

"Lend  me  your  knife,"  she  said,  kneeling  beside 
the  smoky  oil  lamp;  and  without  a  word  he  drew 
his  clasp-knife  from  his  pocket,  opened  the  blade, 
and  held  the  handle  toward  her.  She  took  it  from 
him,  and  then  knelt  motionless  for  an  instant  looking 
at  the  diamond,  which  shone  like  a  star  in  her 
hollowed  palm.  Presently  she  stooped  and  kissed 
it,  and  then  taking  the  fine  point  of  the  blade, 
carefully  pried  the  gold  claws  back  from  the  im- 
prisoned stone. 

"She  has  worn  it  for  fifty  years,"  she  said  softly, 
seeing  the  jewel  contract  and  give  out  a  deeper 
flame  to  her  misty  eyes. 

"It  is  robbery,"  he  protested. 

"It  is  robbery  for  her  sake!"  she  flashed  out 
angrily. 

"All  the  same,  it  seems  bitterly  cruel." 

With  deft  fingers  she  removed  the  bit  of  purple 
glass  from  Docia's  ring  and  inserted  it  between 
the  gold  claws,  which  she  pressed  securely  down. 
"To  the  touch  there  is  no  difference,"  she  said, 
closing  her  eyes.     "She  will  never  know." 

Rising  from  her  knees,  she  gazed  steadily  at  the 
loosened  diamond  lying  in  her  hand;  then,  wrapping 
it  in  cotton,  she  placed  it  in  a  little  wooden  box  from 
a  jeweller  of  fifty  years  ago.  "You  must  get  up 
to-morrow  and  take  it  to  town,"  she  went  on. 
"Carry  it  to  Mr.  Withers — he  knows  us.  There 
is  no  other  way,"  she  added  hastily. 

"There  is  no  other  way,  I  know,"  he  repeated, 
as  he  held  out  his  hand. 


FLETCHER'S  MOVE  149 

"And  you'll  be  back  after  sundown." 

"Not  until  night.  I  shall  walk  over  from  the 
cross-roads.  " 

For  a  time  they  were  both  silent,  and  he,  walking 
to  the  narrow  window,  looked  out  into  the  moist 
darkness.  The  smell  of  the  oil  lamp  oppressed  the 
atmosphere  inside,  and  the  damp  wind  in  his  face 
revived  in  a  measure  his  lowered  spirits.  He 
seemed  suddenly  able  to  cope  with  life — and  with 
Fletcher. 

Far  away  there  was  a  faint  glimmer  among  the 
trees,  now  shining  clear,  now  almost  lost  in  mist, 
and  he  knew  it  to  be  a  lighted  window  at  Blake  Hall. 
The  thought  of  Maria's  lace  stockings  came  to  him 
all  at  once,  and  he  was  seized  with  a  rage  that  was 
ludicrously  large  for  so  small  a  cause.  Confused 
questions  whirled  in  his  brain,  struggling  for  recog- 
nition: "I  am  here  and  she  is  there,  and  what  is  the 
meaning  of  it  all?  I  know  in  spite  of  everything 
I  might  have  loved  her,  and  yet  I  know  still  better 
that  it  is  not  love,  but  hate  I  now  feel.  What  is  the 
difference,  after  all?  And  why  this  eternal  bother 
of  possibilities?"  He  turned  presently  and  spoke: 
And  you  got  this  without  her  suspecting  it  ? " 

"She  was  sleeping  like  a  child,  and  Lila  was  in 
the  little  bed  in  her  chamber.  Often  she  is  restless, 
disturbed  by  her  dreams,  but  to-night  she  lies 
very  quiet,  and  she  smiled  once  as  if  she  were 
so  happy. " 

"And  to-morrow  she  will  wear  the  ring  with  its 
setting  of  purple  glass." 

"She  will  never  know — see,  it  fits  perfectly.  I 
have  fastened  it  carefully.     After  all,  what  does  it 


152  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Come,  come,  let's  go  easy,"  warned  Sam  Murray, 
a  fat,  well-to-do  farmer,  who  was  accustomed  to  act 
the  part  of  a  lawyer  in  small  transactions. 

Fletcher  flushed  purple  and  threw  off  his  rage  in 
a  sneering  guffaw. 

"Now  that  sounds  well  from  him,  doesn't  it?" 
he  inquired — "when  everybody  knows  he  hasn't  a 
beggarly  stitch  on  earth  but  that  strip  of  land  he 
thinks  so  much  of." 

"And  whose  fault  is  that,  Bill  Fletcher?"  de- 
manded the  young  man,  throwing  the  last  note 
down. 

"  Oh,  well,  I  don't  bear  you  any  grudge,"  responded 
Fletcher,  with  an  abrupt  assumption  of  good- 
natured  tolerance;  "and  to  show  I'm  a  well-meaning 
man  in  spite  of  abuse,  I'll  let  the  debt  run  on  two 
years  longer  at  the  same  interest  if  you  choose." 

Christopher  laughed  shortly.  "That's  all  right, 
Sam,"  he  said,  without  replying  directly  to  the 
offer.  "I  owe  him  too  much  already  to  hope  to  pay 
it  back  in  a  single  lifetime." 

"Well,  you're  a  cantankerous,  hard-headed  fool, 
that's  all  I've  got  to  say,"  burst  out  Fletcher,  swal- 
lowing hard,  "and  the  sooner  you  get  to  the  poor- 
house  along  your  own  road  the  better  it'll  be  for 
the  rest  of  us." 

"You  may  be  sure  I'll  take  care  not  to  go  along 
yours.     I'll  have  honest  men  about  me,  at  any  rate." 

"Then  it's  more  than  you've  got  a  right  to  expect." 

Christopher  grew  pale  to  the  lips.  "What  do 
you  mean,  you  scoundrel?"  he  cried,  taking  a 
single  step  forward. 

"Come,   come,  let's  go  easy,"    said  Sam  Murray 


A  GALLANT  DEED       .  153 

persuasively,  rising  from  his  chair  at  the  table. 
"Now  that  this  little  business  is  all  settled  there's 
no  need  for  another  word.  I  haven't  much  opinion 
of  words  myself,  anyhow.  They're  apt  to  set  fire 
to  a  dry  tongue,  that's  what  I  say." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  repeated  Christopher, 
without  swerving  from  his  steady  gaze. 

Tom  Spade  glanced  in  at  the  open  door,  and, 
catching  Fletcher's  eye,  hurriedly  retreated.  A 
small  boy  with  a  greasy  face  came  in  and  gathered 
up  the  glasses  with  a  clanking  noise. 

"What  do  you  mean,  you  coward?"  demanded 
Christopher  for  the  third  time.  He  had  not  moved 
an  inch  from  the  position  he  had  first  assumed,  but 
the  circle  about  his  mouth  showed  blue  against  the 
sunburn  on  his  face. 

Fletcher  raised  his  hand  and  spoke  suddenly 
with  a  snort. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  kick  so  about  swallowing  it," 
he  said.  "Everybody  knows  that  your  grandfather 
never  paid  a  debt  he  owed,  and  your  father  was 
mighty  little  better.  He  was  only  saved  from 
becoming  a  thief  by  being  a  drunkard." 

He  choked  over  the  last  word,  for  Christopher, 
with  an  easy,  almost  leisurely  movement,  had 
struck  him  full  in  the  mouth. 

The  young  man's  arm  was  raised  again,  but  before 
it  fell  Sam  Murray  caught  it  back. 

"I  say,  Tom,  there's  the  devil  to  pay  here!"  he 
shouted,  and  Tom  Spade  rushed  hurriedly  through 
the  doorway. 

"Now,  now,  that'll  never  do,  Mr.  Christopher," 
he  reasoned,  with  a  deference  he  would  never  have 


i54  .      THE  DELIVERANCE 

wasted  upon  Fletcher.  "Why,  he's  old  enough  to 
be  yo'  pa  twice  over." 

A  white  fleck  was  on  Fletcher's  beard,  and  as  he 
wiped  it  away  he  spoke  huskily.  "It's  a  clear  case 
of  assault  and  I'll  have  the  law  on  him,"  he  said. 
"Sam  Murray,  you  saw  him  hit  me  square  in  the 
face." 

"Bless  your  life,  I  wasn't  looking,  suh,"  responded 
Sam  pleasantly.  "I  miss  a  lot  in  this  life  by  always 
happening  to  look  the  other  way." 

"I'll  have  the  law  on  you,"  cried  Fletcher  again, 
shaking  back  his  heavy  eyebrows. 

"You're  welcome  to  have  every  skulking  hound 
in  the  county  on  me,"  Christopher  replied,  loosen- 
ing Sam  Murray's  restraining  grasp.  "If  I  can 
settle  you  I  reckon  I  can  settle  them;  but  the  day 
you  open  your  lying  mouth  to  me  again  I'll  shoot 
you  down  as  I  would  a  mad  dog — and  wash  my  hands 
clean  afterward!" 

He  looked  round  for  his  harvest  hat,  picked  it  up 
from  the  floor  where  it  had  fallen,  and  walked  slowly 
out  of  the  room. 

In  the  broad  noon  outside  he  staggered  an  instant, 
dazzled  by  the  glare. 

"  Had  a  drop  too  much,  ain't  you,  Mr. Christopher  ?" 
a  voice  inquired  at  his  side,  and,  looking  down,  he 
saw  Sol  Peterkin  sitting  on  a  big  wooden  box  just 
outside  the  store. 

"Not  too  much  to  mind  my  own  business,"  was 
his  curt  reply. 

"Oh,  no  harm's  meant,  suh,  an'  I  hope  none's 
taken,"  responded  the  little  man  good-naturedly. 
"I  saw  you  walk  kinder   crooked,  that  was   all,  an' 


A  GALLANT  DEED  155 

it  came  to  me  that  you  might  be  needin'  an  arm 
toward  home.  Young  gentlemen  will  be  gentle- 
men, that's  the  truth,  suh,  an'  in  my  day  I  reckon 
I've  steadied  the  legs  of  mo'  young  beaux  than 
you  could  count  on  your  ten  fingers.  Good  Lord, 
when  it  comes  to  thinkin'  of  those  Christmas  Eve 
frolics  that  we  had  befo'  the  war !  Why,  they 
use  to  say  that  you  couldn't  get  to  the  Hall  unless 
you  swam  your  way  through  apple  toddy.  Jest 
to  think!  an'  here  I've  been  settin'  an'  countin' 
the  bundles  goin'  up  thar  now " 

"I'm  looking  for  a  box,  Tom,"  said  a  clear  voice 
at  Christopher's  back,  "a  big  paper  hat -box  that 
ought  to  have  come  by  express " 

He  turned  quickly  and  saw  Maria  Fletcher  in  a 
little  cart  in  the  road,  with  a  strange  young  man 
holding  the  reins.  As  Christopher  swung  round, 
she  nodded  pleasantly,  but  with  a  cool  stare  he 
passed  down  the  steps  and  out  into  the  road,  carry- 
ing with  him  a  distasteful  impression  of  the  strange 
young  man.  Yet  from  that  first  hurried  glimpse 
he  had  brought  away  only  the  picture  of  a  brown 
mustache. 

"By  George,  I'd  like  to  see  that  fellow  in  the  prize 
ring,"  he  heard  the  stranger  remark  as  he  went  by. 
"Do  they  have  knock-outs  around  here,  I  wonder?" 

"Oh,  I  dare  say  he'd  oblige  you  with  one  if  you 
took  the  trouble  to  tread  on  his  preserves,"  was 
the  girl's  laughing  rejoinder. 

A  massive  repulsion  swept  over  Christopher, 
pervading  his  entire  body — a  repulsion  that  was 
but  a  recoil  from  his  exhausted  rage.  In  this  new 
emotion   there   were   both   weariness    and   self-pity, 


156  THE   DELIVERANCE 

and  to  his  mental  vision  there  showed  clearly,  with 
an  impersonal  detachment,  his  own  figure  in  relation 
to  the  scenes  among  which  he  moved.  "That  is 
I  yonder,"  he  might  have  said  had  he  been  able  to 
disentangle  thought  from  sensation,  "plodding  along 
there  through  the  red  mud  in  the  road.  Look  at 
the  coarse  clothes,  smelling  of  axle-grease,  the  hands 
knotted  by  toil  and  stained  with  tobacco  juice, 
the  face  soiled  with  sweat  and  clay.  That  is  I,  who 
was  born  with  the  love  of  ease  and  the  weakness 
to  temptation  in  my  blood,  with  the  love,  too,  of 
delicate  food,  of  rare  wines,  and  of  beautiful  women. 
Once  I  craved  these  things;  now  the  thought  of 
them  troubles  me  no  longer,  for  I  work  in  the  sun  all 
day  and  go  home  to  enjoy  my  coarse  food.  Is  it 
because  I  have  been  broken  to  my  life  as  a  young 
horse  is  broken  to  the  plough,  or  have  all  the  desires 
I  have  known  been  swallowed  up  in  a  single  hatred 
— a  hatred  as  jealous  and  as  strong  as  love?" 

It  was  his  nightly  habit,  lying  upon  his  narrow 
bed  in  the  little  loft,  to  yield  some  moments  before 
sleeping  to  his  idle  dreams  of  vengeance — to  plan  ex- 
quisite punishments  and  impossible  retaliations.  In 
imagination  he  had  so  often  seen  Fletcher  drop  dead 
before  him,  had  so  often  struck  the  man  down  with 
his  own  nand,  that  there  were  hours  when  he  almost 
believed  the  deed  to  have  been  done — when  something 
like  madness  gripped  him,  and  his  hallucinations 
took  the  snape  and  colour  of  life  itself.  At  such 
times  he  was  conscious  of  the  exhilaration  that  comes 
in  the  instants  of  swift  action,  when  events  move 
quickly,  and  one  rises  beyond  the  ordinary  level 
of  experience.     When  the  real  moment  came — the 


A  GALLANT  DEED  157 

supreme  chance — he  wondered  if  he  would  meet  it  as 
triumphantly  as  he  met  his  dreams  ?  Now,  plodding 
along  the  rocky  road,  he  went  over  again  all  the  old 
schemes  for  the  great  revenge. 

The  small  cart  whirled  past  him,  scattering  dried 
mud-drops  in  his  face,  and  he  caught  the  sound  of 
bright  girlish  laughter.  Looking  after  it,  he  saw 
the  flutter  of  cherry-coloured  ribbons  coiling  outward 
in  the  wind,  and  he  remembered,  watching  the 
gay  streamers,  that  the  only  woman  he  had  ever 
kissed  was  eating  cherries  at  the  moment.  Trivial 
as  the  recollection  was,  it  started  other  associations, 
and  he  followed  the  escaping  memory  of  that  boyish 
romance,  blithe  and  short-lived,  which  was  killed 
at  last  by  a  single  yielded  kiss.  At  sixteen  it  had 
seemed  to  him  that  when  he  caught  the  girl  of  the 
cherries  in  his  arms  he  should  hold  veritable  happiness ; 
and  yet  afterward  there  was  only  a  great  heaviness 
and  something  of  the  repulsion  that  he  felt  to-day. 
Happiness  was  not  to  be  found  on  a  woman's  lips: 
he  had  learned  this  in  his  boyhood;  and  then  even 
as  the  knowledge  returned  to  him  he  found  himself 
savagely  regretting  that  he  had  not  kissed  Maria 
Fletcher  the  day  he  found  her  on  his  land — a  kiss 
of  anger,  not  of  love,  which  she  would  have  loathed 
all  her  life — and  have  remembered  !  To  have  her 
utterly  forget  him — pass  on  serenely  into  her 
marriage,  hardly  remembering  that  he  hated  her — 
this  was  the  bitterest  thing  he  had  to  face;  but  with 
the  brutal  wish,  he  softened  in  recalling  the  tremor 
of  her  lip  as  she  turned  away — the  indignant  quiver 
of  her  eyelashes.  Again  came  the  thought:  "I 
know   in   spite   of   everything   I   might    have   loved 


r58  THE  DELIVERANCE 

her,  and  yet  I  know  still  better  that  it  is  not  love, 
but  hate  I  now  feel."  Her  fragrance,  floating  in  the 
sunshine,  filled  his  nostrils,  and  involuntarily  he 
glanced  over  his  shoulder,  half  expecting  to  find  a 
dropped  handkerchief  in  the  road.  None  was  there 
— only  a  scattered  swarm  of  butterflies  drifting  like 
yellow  rose-leaves  on  the  wind. 

Upon  reaching  the  house  he  found  that  his  mother 
had  asked  for  him,  and  running  hastily  up  to  change 
his  clothes,  he  came  down  and  bent  over  the  upright 
Elizabethan  chair. 

"I  have  been  worrying  a  good  deal  about  you, 
my  son,"  she  said,  with  a  sprightly  gesture  in  which 
the  piece  of  purple  glass  struck  the  dominant  note. 
"Are  you  quite  sure  that  you  are  feeling  perfectly 
well?  No  palpitations  of  the  heart  when  you  go 
upstairs  ?  and  no  particular  heaviness  after  meals  ? 
I  dreamed  about  you  all  night  long,  and  though 
there's  not  a  woman  in  the  world  freer  from  super- 
stition,  I   can't  help  feeling  uneasy." 

Taking  her  hand,  he  gently  caressed  the  slender 
fingers. 

"Why,  I'm  a  regular  ox,  mother,"  he  returned, 
laughing,  "my  muscle  is  like  iron,  and  I  assure  you 
I'm  ready  for  my  meals  day  or  night.  There's 
no  use  worrying  about  me,  so  you'd  as  well  give 
it  up." 

"I  can't  understand  it,  I  really  can't,"  protested 
Mrs.  Blake,  still  unconvinced.  "I  am  an  old  woman, 
you  know,  and  I  am  anxious  to  have  you  settled 
in  life  before  I  die — but  there  seems  to  be  a  most 
extraordinary  humour  in  the  family  with  regard 
to  marriage.     I'm  sure  your  poor  father  would  turn 


A  GALLANT  DEED  159 

in  his  grave  at  the  very  idea  of  his  having  no  grand- 
children to  come  after  him." 

"Well,  there's  time  yet,  mother;  give  us  breathing 
space." 

"There's  not  time  in  my  day,  Christopher,  for 
I  am  very  old,  and  half  dead  as  it  is — but  it  does 
seem  hard  that  I  am  never  to  be  present  at  the 
marriage  of  a  child.  As  for  Cynthia,  she  is  out  of 
the  question,  of  course,  which  is  a  great  pity.  I 
have  very  little  patience  with  an  unmarried  woman 
— no,  not  if  she  were  Queen  Elizabeth  herself — 
though  I  do  know  that  they  are  sometimes  found 
very  useful  in  the  dairy  or  the  spinning:room.  As 
for  an  old  bachelor,  I  have  never  seen  the  spot 
on  earth — and  I've  lived  to  a  great  age — where  he 
wasn't  an  encumbrance.  They  really  ought  to  be 
taught  some  useful  occupation,  such  as  skimming 
milk  or  carding  wool." 

"I  hardly  think  either  of  those  pursuits  would  be 
to  my  taste,"  protested  Christopher,  "but  I  give 
you  leave  to  try  your  hand  on  Uncle  Tucker." 

"Tucker  has  been  a  hero,  my  son,"  rejoined  the 
old  lady  in  a  stately  voice,  "and  the  privilege  of 
having  once  been  a  hero  is  that  nobody  expects  you 
to  exert  yourself  again.  A  man  who  has  taken  the 
enemy's  guns  single-handed,  or  figured  prominently 
in  a  society  scandal,  is  comfortably  settled  in  his 
position  and  may  slouch  pleasantly  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life.  But  for  an  ordinary  gentleman  it  is 
quite  different,  and  as  we  are  not  likely  to  have 
another  war,  you  really  ought  to  marry.  You 
are  preparing  to  go  through  life  too  peacefully, 
my  son." 


160  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Good  Lord!"  exclaimed  Christopher,  "are  you 
hankering  after  squabbles  ?  Well,  you  shan't  drag 
me  into  them,  at  any  cost.  There's  Uncle  Tucker 
to  your  hand,  as  I  said  before." 

"I'm  sure  Tucker  might  have  married  several 
times  had  he  cared  about  it,"  replied  Mrs.  Blake 
reprovingly.  "Miss  Matoaca  Boiling  always  had 
a  sentiment  for  him,  I  am  certain,  and  even  after 
his  misfortune  she  went  so  far  as  to  present  him 
with  a  most  elaborate  slipper  of  red  velvet  ornamented 
with  steel  beads.  I  remember  well  her  consulting 
me  as  to  whether  it  would  be  better  to  seem  unsym- 
pathetic and  give  him  two  or  to  appear  indelicate  and 
offer  him  one.  I  suggested  that  she  should  make 
both  for  the  same  foot,  which,  I  believe,  she  finally 
decided  to  do." 

"Well,  well,  this  is  all  very  interesting,  mother," 
said  Christopher,  rising  from  his  seat,  "but  I've 
promised  old  Jacob  Weatherby  to  pass  my  word 
on  his  tobacco.  On  the  way  down,  however,  I'll 
cast  my  eyes  about  for  a  wife." 

"Between  here  and  the  Weatherbys'  farm?  Why, 
Christopher !" 

"That's  all  right,  but  unless  you  expect  me  to 
pick  up  one  on  the  roadside  I  don't  see  how  we'll 
manage.  I'll  do  anything  to  oblige  you,  you  know, 
even  marry,  if  you'll  find  me  a  good,  sensible  woman." 

The  old  lady's  eyelids  dropped  over  her  piercing 
black  eyes,  which  seemed  always  to  regard  some 
far-off,  ecstatic  vision.  Three  small  furrows  ran 
straight  up  and  down  her  forehead,  and  she  lifted 
one  delicate  white  hand  to  rub  them  out. 

"I  don't  like  joking  on  so  serious  a  subject,  my 


A  GALLANT  DEED  161 

son,"  she  said.  "I'm  sure  Providence  expects 
every  man  to  do  his  duty,  and  to  remain  unmarried 
seems  like  putting  one's  personal  inclination  before 
the  intentions  of  the  Creator.  Your  grandfather 
Corbin  used  to  say  he  had  so  high  an  opinion  of 
marriage  that  if  his  fourth  wife — and  she  was  very 
sickly — were  to  die  at  once,  he'd  marry  his  fifth 
within  the  year.  I  remember  that  Bishop  Deane 
remarked  it  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  tributes 
ever  paid  the  marriage  state — especially  as  it  was 
no  idle  boast,  for,  as  it  happened,  his  wife  died 
shortly  afterward,  and  he  married  Miss  Polly  Blair 
before  six  months  were  up." 

"What  a  precious  old  fool  he  was!"  laughed  the 
young  man,  as  he  reached  the  door,  passing  out 
with  a  horrified  "What,  Christopher!  'Your  own 
grandfather?"  ringing  in  his  ears. 

In  the  yard  he  found  Cynthia  drawing  water  at 
the  well,  and  he  took  the  heavy  bucket  from  her 
and  carried  it  into  the  kitchen.  "You'd  better 
change  your  clothes,"  she  remarked,  eying  him 
narrowly,  "if  you're  going  back  to  the  field." 

"But  I'm  not  going  back;  the  axe  handle  has 
broken  again  and  I'll  have  to  borrow  Jim  Weatherby's. 
There's  no  use  trying  to  mend  that  old  handle  any 
more.  It'll  have  to  lie  over  till  after  tobacco  cutting, 
when  I  can  make  a  new  one." 

"Oh,  you  might  as  well  keep  Jim's  altogether," 
returned  Cynthia  irritably,  loath  to  receive  favours 
from  her  neighbours.  "The  first  thing  we  know 
he  will  be  running  this  entire  place." 

"I  reckon  he'd  make  a  much  better  job  of  it," 
replied  Christopher,  as  he  swung  out  into  the  road, 


i62  THE  DELIVERANCE 

On  the  whitewashed  porch  of  the  Weatherbys' 
house  he  found  old  Jacob — a  hale,  cleanly  old  man 
with  cheeks  like  frosted  winter  apples — gazing 
thoughtfully  over  his  fine  field  of  tobacco,  which  had 
grown  almost  to  his  threshold. 

"The  weather's  going  to  have  a  big  drop  to-night," 
he  said  reflectively;  "I  smell  it  on  the  wind.  Lord! 
Lord  !  I  reckon  I'd  better  begin  on  that  thar  tobaccy 
about  sunup — and  yet  another  day  or  so  of  sun 
and  September  dew  would  sweeten  it  consider 'ble. 
How  about  yours,   Mr.   Christopher?" 

"I'll  cut  my  ripest  plants  to-morrow,"  answered 
Christopher,  sniffing  the  air.  "A  big  drop's  coming, 
sure  enough,  but  I  don't  scent  frost  as  yet — the 
pines  don't  smell  that  way." 

They  discussed  the  tobacco  for  a  time — the  rosy, 
genial  old  man,  whom  age  had  mellowed  without 
souring — listening  with  a  touching  deference  to  his 
visitor's  casual  words;  and  when  at  last  Christopher, 
with  the  axe  on  his  shoulder,  started  leisurely  home- 
ward, "the  drop"  was  already  beginning,  and  the 
wind  blew  cool  and  crisp  across  the  misty  fields, 
beyond  which  a  round,  red  sun  was  slowly  setting. 
Level,  vast  and  dark,  the  tobacco  swept  clear  to  the. 
horizon. 

Between  Weatherby's  and  the  little  store  there 
was  an  abrupt  bend  in  the  road,  where  it  shot  aside 
from  a  steep  descent  in  the  ground;  and  Christopher 
had  reached  this  point  when  he  saw  suddenly  ahead 
of  him  a  farm  wagon  driven  forward  at  a  reckless 
pace.  As  it  neared  him  he  heard  the  wheels  thunder 
on  the  rocky  bed  of  the  road,  and  saw  that  the 
driver's  seat  was  vacant,  the  man  evidently  having 


A  GALLANT  DEED  163 

been  thrown  some  distance  back.  The  horses — 
a  young  pair  he  had  never  seen  before — held  the 
bits  in  their  mouths;  and  it  was  with  a  hopelessness 
of  checking  their  terrible  speed  that  he  stepped  out 
of  the  road  to  give  them  room.  The  next  instant 
he  saw  that  they  were  making  straight  for  the 
declivity  from  which  the  road  shot  back,  seeing  in 
the  same  breath  that  the  driver  of  the  wagon,  not 
falling  clear,  had  entangled  himself  in  the  long  reins 
and  was  being  dragged  rapidly  beneath  the  wheels. 
Tossing  his  axe  aside,  he  sprang  instantly  at  the 
horses'  heads,  hanging  with  his  whole  powerful 
weight  upon  their  mouths.  Life  or  death  was  nothing 
to  him  at  the  moment,  and  he  seemed  td  have  only 
an  impersonal  interest  in  the  multiplied  sensations. 
What  followed  was  a  sense  of  incalculable  swiftness, 
a  near  glimpse  of  blue  sky,  the  falling  of  stars 
around  him  in  the  road,  and  after  these  things  a 
great  darkness.  • 

When  he  came  to  himself  he  was  lying  in  a  patch 
of  short  grass,  with  a  little  knot  of  men  about  him, 
among  whom  he  recognised  Jim  Weatherby. 

"I  brought  them  in,  didn't  I  ? "  he  asked,  struggling 
up;  and  then  he  saw  that  his  coat  sleeves  were  rent 
from  the  armholes,  leaving  his  arms  bare  beneath 
his  torn  blue  shirt.  Cynthia's  warning  returned  to 
him,  and  he  laughed  shortly. 

"Well,  I  reckon  you  could  bring  the  devil  in  if 
you  put  all  your  grip  on  him,"  was  Jim's  reply;  "as 
it  is,  you're  pretty  sore,  ain't  you?" 

"Oh,  rather,  but  I  wish  I  hadn't  spoiled  my  coat. " 
He  was  still  thinking  of  Cynthia. 


i64  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"God  alive,  man,  it's  a  mercy  you  didn't  spoil 
your  life.  Why,  another  second  and  the  horses 
would  have  been  over  that  bank  yonder,  with  you 
and  young  Fletcher  under  the  wagon." 

Christopher  rose  slowly  from  the  ground  and  stood 
erect. 

"With  me — and  who  under  the  wagon? — and 
who?"  he  asked  in  a  throaty  voice. 

Jim  Weatherby  whistled.  "Why,  to  think  you 
didn't  know  all  along!"  he  exclaimed.  "It  was 
Fletcher's  boy;  he  made  Zebbadee  let  him  take  the 
reins.  Fletcher  saw  it  all  and  he  was  clean  mad 
when  he  got  here — it  took  three  men  to  hold  him. 
He  thinks  more  of  that  boy  than  he  does  of  his 
own  soul.     What's  the  matter,  man,  are  you  hurt?" 

Christopher  had  gone  dead  white,  and  the  blue 
circle  came  out  slowly  around  his  mouth.  "And 
I  saved  him!"  he  gasped.  "I  saved  him!  Isn't 
there  some  mistake?     Maybe  he's  dead  anyway!" 

"Blesc  you,  no,"  responded  Jim,  a  trifle  discon- 
certed. "The  doctor's  here  and  he  says  it's  a  case  of 
a  broken  leg  instead  of  a  broken  neck,  that's  all." 

Looking  about  him,  Christopher  saw  that  there 
was  another  group  of  men  at  a  little  distance,  gathered 
around  something  that  lay  still  and  straight  on  the 
grass.  The  sound  of  a  hoarse  groan  reached  him 
suddenly — an  inarticulate  cry  of  distress — and  he 
felt  with  a  savage  joy  that  it  was  from  Fletcher. 
He  looked  down,  drawing  together  his  tattered 
sleeves.  For  a  time  he  was  silent,  and  when  he 
spoke  it  was  with  a  sneering  laugh. 

"Well,  I've  been  a  fool,  that's  all,"  was  what 
he  said. 


CHAPTER  V 
The  Glimpse  of  a  Bride 

The  next  morning  he  awoke  with  stiffened  limbs 
and  confusion  in  his  head,  and  for  a  time  he  lay  idly 
looking  at  his  little  window-panes,  beyond  which 
the  dawn  hung  like  a  curtain.  Then,  as  a  long  finger 
of  sunlight  pointed  through  the  glass,  he  rose  with 
an  effort  and,  dressing  himself  hastily,  went  down- 
stairs to  breakfast.  Here  he  found  that  Zebbadee 
Blake,  who  had  promised  to  help  him  cut  his  crop, 
had  not  yet  appeared,  owing  probably  to  the 
excitement  of  Fletcher's  runaway.  The  man's 
absence  annoyed  him  at  first;  and  then,  as  the  day 
broke  clear  and  cold,  he  succumbed  to  his  ever- 
present  fear  of  frost  and,  taking  his  pruning-knife 
from  the  kitchen  mantelpiece,  went  out  alone  to 
begin  work  on  his  ripest  plants. 

The  sun  had  already  tempered  the  morning  chill 
in  the  air,  and  the  slanting  beams  stretched  over 
the  tobacco,  which,  as  the  dew  dried,  showed  a  vivid 
green  but  faintly  tinged  with  yellow — a  colour  that 
even  in  the  sparkling  sunlight  appeared  always 
slightly  shadowed.  To  attempt  alone  the  cutting 
of  his  crop,  small  as  it  was,  seemed,  with  his  stiffened 
limbs,  a  particularly  trying  task,  and  for  a  moment 
he  stood  gazing  wearily  across  the  field.     Presently, 

165 


166  THE  DELIVERANCE 

with  a  deliberate  movement  as  if  he  were  stooping 
to  shoulder  a  fresh  burden,  he  slit  the  first  ripe  stalk 
from  its  flaunting  top  to  within  a  hand's-breadth 
of  the  ground;  then,  cutting  it  half  through  near  the 
roots,  he  let  it  fall  to  one  side,  where  it  hung,  slowly 
wilting,  on  the  earth.  Gradually,  as  he  applied 
himself  to  the  work,  the  old  zest  of  healthful  labour 
returned  to  him,  and  he  passed  buoyantly  through 
the  narrow  aisle,  leaving  a  devastated  furrow  on 
either  side.  It  was  a  cheerful  picture  he  presented, 
when  Tucker,  dragging  himself  heavily  from  the 
house,  came  to  the  ragged  edge  of  the  field  and  sat 
down  on  an  old  moss-grown  stump. 

"Where's    Zebbadee,    Christopher?" 

"He  didn't  turn  up.  It  was  that  affair  of  the 
accident,  probably.     Fletcher  berated  him,  I  reckon.  " 

"So  you've  got  to  cut  it  all  yourself.  Well,  it's 
a  first-rate  crop — the  very  primings  ought  to  be  as 
good  as  some  top  leaves." 

"The  crop's  all  right,"  responded  Christopher, 
as  his  knife  passed  with  a  ripping  noise  down  the 
juicy  stalk.  "You  know  I  made  a  fool  of  myself 
yesterday,  Uncle  Tucker,"  he  said  suddenly,  drawing 
back  when  the  plant  fell  slowly  across  the  furrow, 
"and  I'm  so  stiff  in  the  joints  this  morning  I  can 
hardly  move.  I  met  one  of  Fletcher's  farm  wagons 
running  away,  with  his  boy  dragged  by  the  reins, 
and — I  stopped  it." 

Tucker  turned  his  mild  blue  eyes  upon  him. 
Since  the  news  of  Appomattox  nothing  had  surprised 
him,  and  he  was  not  surprised  now — he  was  merely 
interested.  "  You  couldn't  have  helped  it,  I  suspect,  " 
he  remarked. 


THE  GLIMPSE  OF  A  BRIDE  167 

"I  didn't  know  whose  it  was,  you  see,"  answered 
Christopher;  "the  horses  were  new." 

"You'd  have  done  it  anyway,  I  reckon.  At  such 
moments  it's  a  man's  mettle  that  counts,  you  know, 
and  not  his  emotions.  You  might  have  hated 
Fletcher  ten  times  worse,  but  you'd  have  risked 
your  life  to  stop  the  horses  all  the  same — because, 
after  all,  what  a  man  is  is  something  different  from 
how  he  feels  about  things.  It's  in  your  blood  to 
dare  everything  whenever  a  chance  offers,  as  it  was 
in  your  father's  before  you.  Why,  I've  seen  him 
stop  on  the  way  to  a  ball,  pull  off  his  coat,  and  go 
up  a  burning  ladder  to  save  a  woman's  pet  canary, 
and  then,  when  the  crowd  hurrahed  him,  I've  laughed 
because  I  knew  he  deserved  nothing  of  the  kind. 
With  him  it  wasn't  courage  so  much  as  his  inborn 
love  of  violent  action — it  cleared  his  head,  he 
used  to   say." 

Christopher  stopped  cutting,  straightened  him- 
self, and  held  his  knife  loosely  in  his  hand. 

"That's  about  it,  I  reckon,"  he  returned.  "I 
know  I'm  not  a  bit  of  a  hero — if  I'd  been  in  your 
place  I'd  have  shown  up  long  ago  for  a  skulking 
coward — but  it's  the  excitement  of  the  moment 
that  I  like.  Why,  there's  nothing  in  life  I'd 
enjoy  so  much  as  knocking  Fletcher  down — it's 
one  of  the  things  I  look  forward  to  that  makes 
it   all  worth  while." 

Tucker  laughed  softly.  It  was  a  peculiarity  of 
his  never  to  disapprove. 

"That's  a  good  savage  instinct,"  he  said,  with  a 
humorous  tremor  of  his  nostrils,  "and  it's  a  saying 
of  mine,  you  know,  that  a  man  is  never  really  civilised 


168  THE  DELIVERANCE 

until  he  has  turned  fifty.  We're  all  born  mighty- 
near  to  the  wolf  and  mighty  far  from  the  dog,  and 
it  takes  a  good  many  years  to  coax  the  wild  beast 
to  lie  quiet  by  the  fireside.  It's  the  struggle  that 
the  Lord  wants,  I  reckon;  and  anyhow,  He  makes 
it  easier  for  us  as  the  years  go  on.  When  a  man 
gets  along  past  his  fiftieth  year,  he  begins  to  under- 
stand that  there  are  few  things  worth  bothering 
about,  and  the  sins  of  his  fellow  mortals  are  not 
among   'em." 

"  Bless  my  soul ! "  exclaimed  Christopher  in  disgust, 
rapping  his  palm  smartly  with  the  flat  blade  of  his 
knife.  "Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you've  actually 
gone  and  forgiven  Bill   Fletcher?" 

"Well,  I  wouldn't  go  so  far  as  to  water  the  grass 
on  his  grave,"  answered  Tucker,  still  smiling,  "but 
I've  not  the  slightest  objection  to  his  eating,  sleeping, 
and  moving  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  There's 
room  enough  for  us  both,  even  in  this  little  county, 
and  so  long  as  he  keeps  out  of  my  sight,  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned  he  absolutely  doesn't  exist.  I  never 
think  of  him  except  when  you  happen  to  call  his 
name.  If  a  man  steals  my  money,  that's  his  affair. 
I  can't  afford  to  let  him  steal  my  peace  of  mind 
as  well. " 

With  a  groan  Christopher  went  back  to  his  work. 

"It  may  be  sense  you're  talking,"  he  observed, 
"but  it  sounds  to  me  like  pure  craziness.  It's  just 
as  well,  either  way,  I  reckon,  that  I'm  not  in  your 
place  and  you  in  mine — for  if  that  were  so  Fletcher 
would  most  likely  go  scot  free. " 

Tucker  rose  unsteadily  from  the  stump. 

"Why,  if  we  stood  in  each  other's  boots,"  he  said, 


stood,  bareheaded,  gazing  over  the  broad  field.' 


THE  GLIMPSE  OP  A  BRIDE  169 

with  a  gentle  chuckle,  "or,  to  be  exact,  if  I  stood 
in  your  two  boots  and  you  in  my  one,  as  sure  as  fate, 
you'd  be  thinking  my  way  and  I  yours.  Well,  I 
wish  I  could  help  you,  but  as  I  can't  I'll  be  moving 
slowly  back." 

He  shuffled  off  on  his  crutches,  painfully  swinging 
himself  a  step  at  a  time,  and  Christopher,  after  a 
moment's  puzzled  stare  at  his  pathetic  figure, 
returned  diligently  to  his  work. 

His  passage  along  the  green  aisle  was  very  slow, 
and  when  at  last  he  reached  the  extreme  end  by 
the  little  beaten  path  and  felled  the  last  stalk  on  his 
left  side  he  straightened  himself  for  a  moment's 
rest,  and  stood,  bareheaded,  gazing  over  the  broad 
field,  which  looked  as  if  a  windstorm  had  blown 
in  an  even  line  along  the  edge,  scattering  the  outside 
plants  upon  the  ground.  The  thought  of  his  work 
engrossed  him  at  the  instant,  and  it  was  with  some- 
thing of  a  start  that  he  became  conscious  presently 
of  Maria  Fletcher's  voice  at  his  back.  Wheeling 
about  dizzily,  he  found  her  leaning  on  the  old  rail 
fence,  regarding  him  with  shining  eyes  in  which  the 
tears  seemed  hardly  dried. 

"I  have  just  left  Will,"  she  said;  "the  doctor  has 
set  his  leg  and  he  is  sleeping.  It  was  my  last  chance 
— I  am  going  away  to-morrow — and  I  wanted  to 
tell  you- — I  wanted  so  to  tell  you  how  grateful  we 
feel." 

The  knife  dropped  from  his  hand,  and  he  came 
slowly  along  the  little  path  to  the  fence. 

"I  fear  you've  got  an  entirely  wrong  idea  about 
me,"  he  answered.  "It  was  nothing  in  the  world 
to  make  a  fuss  over — and  I  swear  to  you  if  it  were 


170  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  last  word  I  ever  spoke — I  did  not  know  it  was 
your   brother.  " 

"As  if  that  mattered!"  she  exclaimed,  and  he 
remembered  vaguely  that  he  had  heard  her  use  the 
words  before.  "You  risked  your  life  to  save  his 
life:  we  know  that.  Grandpa  saw  it  all — and  the 
horses  dragged  you,  too.  You  would  have  been  killed 
if  the  others  hadn't  run  up  when  they  did.  And  you 
tell  me — as  if  that  made  it  any  the  less  brave — that 
you  didn't  know  it  was  Will. " 

"I  didn't,"  he  repeated  stubbornly.     "I  didn't." 

"Well,  he  does,"  she  responded,  smiling;  "and 
he  wants  to  thank  you  himself  when  he  is  well 
enough.  " 

"If  you  wish  to  do  me  a  kindness,  for  heaven's 
sake  tell  him  not  to,"  he  said  irritably.  "I  hate 
all  such  foolishness — it  makes  me  out  a  hypocrite!" 

"I  knew  you'd  hate  it;  I  told  them  so,"  tranquilly 
responded  the  girl.  "Aunt  Saidie  wanted  to  rush 
right  over  last  night,  but  I  wouldn't  let  her.  All 
brave  men  dislike  to  have  a  fuss  made  over  them, 
I   know." 

"Good  Lord  !  "  ejaculated  Christopher,  and  stopped 
short,  impatiently  desisting  before  the  admiration 
illumining  her  eyes.  From  her  former  disdain  he 
had  evidently  risen  to  a  height  in  her  regard  that 
was  romantic  in  its  ardour.  It  was  in  vain  that  he 
told  himself  he  cared  for  one  emotion  as  little  as 
for  the  other — in  spite  of  his  words,  the  innocent 
fervour  in  her  face  swept  over  the  barrier  of 
his  sullen  pride. 

"So  you  are  going  away  to-morrow,"  he  said  at 
last;  "and  for  good?" 


THE  GLIMPSE  OF  A  BRIDE  171 

"For  good,  yes.  I  go  abroad  very  unexpectedly 
for  perhaps  five  years.  My  things  aren't  half  ready, 
but  business  is  of  more  importance  than  a  woman's 
clothes. " 

' '  Will  you  be  alone  ? ' ' 

"Oh,  no." 

' '  Who  goes  with  you  ? "   he  insisted  bluntly. 

As  she  reddened,  he  watched  the  colour  spread 
slowly  to  her  throat  and  ear. 

"I  am  to  be  married,  you  know,"  she  answered, 
with  her  accustomed  composure  of  tone. 

His  lack  of  gallantry  was  churlish. 

"To  that  dummy  with  the  brown  mustache?" 
he  inquired. 

A  little  hysterical  laugh  broke  from  her,  and  she 
made  a  hopeless  gesture  of  reproof.  ' '  Your  manners 
are  really  elementary,"  she  remarked,  adding  im- 
mediately: "I  assure  you  he  isn't  in  the  least  a 
dummy — he  is  considered  a  most  delightful  talker." 

He  swept  the  jest  impatiently  aside. 

"Why  do  you  do  it?"  he  demanded. 

"  Do  what  ?" 

"You  know  what  I  mean.  Why  do  you  marry 
him  ? ' ' 

Again  she  bit  back  a  laugh.  It  was  all  very 
primitive,  very  savage,  she  told  herself;  it  was,  above 
all,  different  from  any  of  the  life  that  she  had  known, 
and  yet,  in  a  mysterious  way,  it  was  familiar,  as  if 
the  unrestrained  emotion  in  his  voice  stirred  some 
racial  memory  within  her  brain. 

"Why  do  I  marry  him?"  She  drew  a  step 
away,  looking  at  sky  and  field.  "Why  do  I  marry 
him?"       She    hesitated    slightly,     "Oh,    for    many 


172  THE  DELIVERANCE 

reasons,  and  all  good  ones — but  most  of  all  because 

I  love  him.  " 

•    "You  do  not  love  him." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  but  I  do." 

For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  as  her  eyes  swept 
over  the  landscape,  she  was  conscious  of  a  peculiar 
charm  in  the  wildness  of  the  country,  in  the  absence 
of  all  civilising  influences — in  the  open  sky,  the  red 
road,  the  luxuriant  tobacco,  the  coarse  sprays  of 
yarrow  blooming  against  the  fence;  in  the  homely 
tasks,  drawing  one  close  to  the  soil,  and  the  har- 
vesting of  the  ripened  crops,  the  milking  of  the 
mild-eyed  cows,  and  in  the  long  still  days,  followed 
by  the  long  still  nights. 

Their  eyes  met,  and  for  a  time  both  were  silent. 
She  felt  again  the  old  vague  trouble  at  his  presence, 
the  appeal  of  the  rustic  tradition,  the  rustic  temper- 
ament; of  all  the  multiplied  inheritances  of  the 
centuries,  which  her  education  had  not  utterly 
extinguished. 

"Well,  I  hope  you'll  live  to  regret  it,"  he  said 
suddenly,  with  bitter  passion. 

The  words  startled  her,  and  she  caught  her  breath 
with  a  tremor. 

"What   an   awful  wish!"   she  exclaimed  lightly. 

"It's  an  honest  one.  " 

"I'm  not  sure  I  shouldn't  prefer  a  little  polite 
lying." 

"You  won't  get  it  from  me.  I  hope  you'll  live 
to  regret  it.     Why  shouldn't  I?" 

"Oh,  you  might  at  least  be  decently  human.  If 
you  hadn't  been  so  brave  yesterday,  I  might  almost 
think  you  a  savage  to-day." 


THE  GLIMPSE  OF  A  BRIDE  173 

"I  didn't  do  that  on  purpose,  I  told  you,"  he 
returned  angrily. 

"You  can't  make  me  believe  that— it's  no  use 
trying." 

"I  shan't  try — though  it's  the  gospel  truth — 
and  you'll  find  it  out  some  day." 

"When?" 

"Oh,  when  the  time  comes,  that's  all." 

"You  speak  in  riddles,"  she  said,  "and  I  always 
hated  guessing."  Then  she  held  out  her  hand  with 
a  pleasant,  conventional  smile.  "I  am  grateful  to 
you  in  spite  of  everything,"  she  said;  "and  now 
good-by." 

His  arms  hung  at  his  side.  "No,  I  won't  shake 
hands,"  he  answered.     "What's  the  use?" 

"As  you  please — only,  it's  the  usual  thing  at 
parting." 

"All  the  same,  I  won't  do  it,"  he  said  stubbornly. 
"My  hands  are  not  clean."  He  held  them  out, 
soiled  with  earth  and  the  stains  from  the  tobacco. 

For  an  instant  her  eyes  dwelt  upon  him  very 
kindly. 

"Oh,  I  shan't  mind  the  traces  of  honest  toil,"  she 
said;  but  as  he  still  hung  back,  she  gave  a  friendly 
nod  and  went  quickly  homeward  along  the  road. 
As  her  figure  vanished  among  the  trees,  a  great 
bitterness  oppressed  him,  and,  picking  up  his  knife, 
he  went  back  doggedly  to  his  work. 

In  the  kitchen,  when  he  returned  to  dinner  some 
hours  later,  he  found  Cynthia  squinting  heavily 
over  the  torn  coat. 

"I  must  say  you  ruined  this  yesterday,"  she 
remarked,  looking  up  from  her  needle,  "and  if  you'd 


i74  THE  DELIVERANCE 

listened  to  me  you  could  have  stopped  those  horses 
just  as  well  in  your  old  jean  clothes.  I  had  a  feeling 
that  something  was  going  to  happen,  when  I  saw 
you  with  this  on." 

"I  don't  doubt  it,"  he  responded,  wofully  eying 
the  garment  spread  on  her  knees,  "and  I  may  as 
well  admit  right  now  that  I  made  a  mess  of  the 
whole  thing.  To  think  of  my  wasting  the  only 
decent  suit  I  had  on  a  Fletcher — after  saving  up  a 
year  to  buy  it,  too." 

Cynthia  twitched  the  coat  inside  out  and  placed 
a  square  patch  over  the  ragged  edges  of  the  rent. 
"I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  thankful  you  saved  the 
boy's  life,"  she  observed,  "but  I  can't  say  that  I 
feel  particularly  jubilant  when  I  look  at  these  arm- 
holes.  Of  course,  when  I  first  heard  of  it  the  coat 
seemed  a  mere  trifle,  but  when  I  come  to  the  mending 
I  begin  to  wish  you'd  been  heroic  in  your  every-day 
clothes.  There'll  have  to  be  a  patch  right  here, 
but  I  don't  reckon  it  will  show  much.  Do  you 
mind?" 

"I'd  rather  wear  a  mustard  plaster  than  a  patch 
any  time,"  he  replied  gravely;  "but  as  long  as  there's 
no  help  for  it,  lay  them  on — don't  slight  the  job 
a  bit  because  of  my  feelings.  I  can  stand  pretty 
well  having  my  jean  clothes  darned  and  mended, 
but  I  do  object  to  dressing  up  on  Sundays  in  a  bed- 
quilt." 

"Well,  you'll  have  to,  that's  all,"  was  Cynthia's 
reassuring  rejoinder.  "It's  the  price  you  pay  for 
being  a  hero  when  you  can't  afford  it." 


CHAPTER   VI 

Shows  Fletcher  in  a  New  Light 

Responding  to  a  much-distracted  telegram  from 
Fletcher,  Carraway  arrived  at  the  Hall  early  on  the 
morning  of  Maria's  marriage,  to  arrange  for  the 
transfer  to  the  girl  of  her  smaller  share  in  her  grand- 
father's wealth.  In  the  reaction  following  the 
hysterical  excitement  over  the  accident,  Fletcher  had 
grown  doubly  solicitous  about  the  future  of  the 
boy — feeling,  apparently,  that  the  value  of  his  heir 
was  increased  by  his  having  so  nearly  lost  him. 
When  Carraway  found  him  he  was  bustling  noisily 
about  the  sick-room,  walking  on  tiptoe  with  a  tramp 
that  shook  the  floor,  while  Will  lay  gazing  wearily 
at  the  sunlight  which  filtered  through  the  bright- 
green  shutters.  Somewhere  in  the  house  a  canary 
was  trilling  joyously,  and  the  cheerful  sound  lent  a 
pleasant  animation  to  the  otherwise  depressing 
atmosphere.  On  his  way  upstairs  Carraway  had 
met  Maria  running  from  the- boy's  room,  with  her 
hair  loose  upon  her  shoulders,  and  she  had  stopped 
long  enough  to  show  a  smiling  face  on  the  subject 
of  her  marriage.  There  were  to  be  only  Fletcher, 
Miss  Saidie  and  himself  as  witnesses,  he  gathered — 
Wyndham's  parents  having  held  somewhat  aloof 
from  the  connection — and  within  three  hours  at  the 

i7S 


176  THE  DELIVERANCE 

most  it  would  be  over  and  the  bridal  pair  beginning 
their  long  journey.  Looking  down  from  the  next 
landing,  he  had  further  assurance  of  the  sincerity 
of  Maria's  smile  when  he  saw  the  lovers  meet  and 
embrace  within  the  shadow  of  the  staircase;  and 
the  sight  stirred  within  his  heart  something  of  that 
wistful  pity  with  which  those  who  have  learned  how 
little  emotion  counts  in  life  watch  the  first  exuber- 
ance of  young  passion.  A  bright  beginning  what- 
ever be  the  ending,  he  thought  a  little  sadly,  as  he 
turned  the  handle  of  the  sick-room  door. 

The  boy's  fever  had  risen  and  he  tossed  his  arms 
restlessly  upon  the  counterpane.  "Stand  out  of 
my  sunshine,  grandpa,"  he  said  fretfully,  as  the 
lawyer  sat  down  by  his  bedside. 

Fletcher  shuffled  hastily  from  before  the  window, 
and  it  struck  Carraway  almost  ludicrously  that  in 
all  the  surroundings  in  which  he  had  ever  seen  him 
the  man  had  never  appeared  so  hopelessly  out  of 
place — not  even  when  he  had  watched  him  at  prayer 
one  Sunday  in  the  little  country  church. 

"There,  you're  in  it  again,"  complained  the  boy 
in  his  peevish  tones. 

Fletcher  lifted  a  cup  from  the  table  and  brought 
it  over  to  the  bed. 

"Maybe  you'd  like  a  sip  of  this  beef  tea  now,"  he 
suggested  persuasively.  "It's  most  time  for  your 
medicine,  you  know,  so  jest  a  little  taste  of  this 
beforehand." 

"I  don't  like  it,  grandpa;  it's  too  salt." 

"Thar,  now,  that's  jest  like  Saidie,"  blurted 
Fletcher  angrily.  "  Saidie,  you've  gone  and  made 
his  beef  tea  too  salt." 


FLETCHER  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT  177 

Miss  Saidie  appeared  instantly  at  the  door  of  the 
adjoining  room,  and  without  seeking  to  diminish 
the  importance  of  her  offense,  mildly  offered  to 
prepare  a  fresh  bowl  of  the  broth. 

"I'm  packing  Maria's  clothes  now,"  she  said, 
"but  I'll  be  through  in  a  jiffy,  and  then  I'll  make 
the  soup.  I've  jest  fixed  up  the  parlour  for  the 
marriage.  Maria  insists  on  having  a  footstool  to 
kneel  on — she  ain't  satisfied  with  jest  standing  with 
jined  hands  before  the  preacher,  like  her  pa  and  ma 
did  before  she  was  born." 

"Well,  drat  Maria's  whims,"  retorted  Fletcher 
impatiently;  "they  can  wait,  I  reckon,  and  Will's 
got  to  have  his  tea,  so  you'd  better  fetch  it." 

"But  I  don't  want  it,  grandpa,"  protested  the 
boy,  flushed  and  troubled.  "You  worry  me  so, 
that's  all.  Please  stop  fooling  with  those  curtains — 
I  like  the  sunshine." 

"A  nap  is  what  he  needs,  I  suspect,"  observed 
Carraway,  touched,  in  spite  of  himself,  by  the 
lumbering  misery  of  the  man. 

"Ah,  that's  it,"  agreed  Fletcher,  catching  readily 
at  the  suggestion.  "You  jest  turn  right  over  and 
take  yo'  nap,  and  when  you  wake  up — well,  I'll 
give  you  anything  you  want.  Here,  swallow  this 
stuff  down  quick  and  you'll  sleep  easy." 

He  brought  the  medicine  glass  to  the  bedside,  and, 
slipping  his  great  hairy  hand  under  the  pillow, 
gently  raised  the  boy's  head. 

"I  reckon  you'd  like  a  brand  new  saddle  when 
you  git  up,"  he  remarked  in  a  coaxing  voice. 

"I'd  rather  have  a  squirrel  gun,  grandpa;  I  want 
to  go  hunting." 


i78  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Fletcher's  face   clouded. 

"I'm  afraid  you'd  git  shot,  sonny." 

With  his  lips  to  the  glass,  Will  paused  to  haggle 
over  the  price  of  his  obedience. 

"But  I  want  it,"  he  insisted;  "and  I  want  a  pack 
of  hounds,  too,  to  chase  rabbits." 

"Bless  my  boots!  You  ain't  going  to  bring  any 
driveling  beasts  on  the  place,  air  you?" 

"  Yes,  I  am,  grandpa.  I  won't  swallow  this  unless 
you  say  I  may." 

"Oh,  you  hurry  up  and  git  well,  and  then  we'll 
see — we'll  see,"  was  Fletcher's  answer.  "Gulp 
this  stuff  right  down  now  and  turn  over." 

The  boy  still  hesitated. 

"Then  I  may  have  the  hounds,"  he  said;  "that 
new  litter  of  puppies  Tom  Spade  has,  and  I'll  get 
Christopher  Blake  to  train  'em  for  me." 

The  pillow  shook  under  his  head,  and  as  he  opened 
his  mouth  to  drink,  a  few  drops  of  the  liquid  spilled 
upon  the  bedclothes. 

"I  reckon  Zebbadee's  a  better  man  for  hounds," 
suggested  Fletcher,  setting  down  the  glass. 

"Oh,  Zebbadee's  aren't  worth  a  cent — they  can't 
tell  a  rabbit  from  a  watering-pot.  I  want  Christo- 
pher Blake  to  train  'em,  and  I  want  to  see  him  about 
it  to-day.     Tell  him  to  come,  grandpa." 

"I  can't,  sonny — I  can't;  you  git  your  hounds 
and  we'll  find  a  better  man.  Why,  thar's  Jim 
Weatherby;    he'll  do  first  rate." 

"His  dogs  are  setters,"  fretted  Will.  "I  don't 
want  him;  I  want  Christopher  Blake — he  saved  my 
life,  you  know." 

"So  he  did,  so  he  did,"  admitted  Fletcher;  "and 


FLETCHER  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT  179 

he  shan't  be  a  loser  by  that,  suh,"  he  added,  turning 
to  Carraway.  "When  you  go  over  thar,  you  can 
carry  my  check  along  for  five  hundred  dollars." 

The  lawyer  smiled.  "  Oh,  I'll  take  it,"  he  answered, 
"  and  I'll  verydikely  bring  it  back." 

The  boy  looked  at  Carraway.  "You  tell  him  to 
come,  sir,"  he  pleaded.  His  eyes  were  so  like 
Fletcher's — small,  sparkling,  changing  from  blue  to 
brown — that  the  lawyer's  glance  lingered  upon  the 
other's  features,  seeking  some  resemblance  in  them, 
also.  To  his  surprise  he  found  absolutely  none — 
the  high,  blue-veined  forehead  beneath  the  chestnut 
hair;  the  straight,  delicate  nose;  the  sensitive,  almost 
effeminate  curve  of  the  mouth,  must  have  descended 
from  the  "worthless  drab  "  whom  he  had  beheld 
in  the  severe  white  light  of  Fletcher's  scorn.  For 
the  first  time  it  occurred  to  Carraway  that  the 
illumination  had  been  too  intense. 

"I'll  tell  him,  certainly,"  he  said  quietly  after  a 
moment;  "but  I  don't  promise  that  he'll  come,  you 
understand." 

"Oh,  I  won't  thank  him,"  cried  the  boy  eagerly. 
"It  isn't  for  that  I  want  him — tell  him  so.  Maria 
says  he  hates  a  fuss." 

"I'll  deliver  your  message  word  for  word,"  re- 
sponded the  lawyer.  "Not  only  that,  I'll  add  my 
own  persuasion  to  it,  though  I  fear  I  have  little 
influence  with  your  neighbour." 

"Tell  him  I  beg  him  to  come,"  insisted  the  boy, 
and  the  urgent  voice  remained  with  Carraway 
throughout  the  day. 

It  was  not  until  the  afternoon,  however,  when 
he   had  tossed   his   farewell   handful   of  rice   at   the 


180  THE  DELIVERANCE 

departing  carriage  and  met  Maria's  last  disturbed 
look  at  the  Hall,  that  he  found  time  to  carry  Will's 
request  and  Fletcher's  check  to  Christopher  Blake. 
The  girl  had  shown  her  single  trace  of  emotion  over 
the  boy's  pillow,  where  she  had  shed  a  few  furtive 
tears,  and  the  thought  of  this  was  with  Carraway 
as  he  walked  meditatively  along  the  red  clay  road, 
down  the  long  curves  of  which  he  saw  the  carriage 
rolling  leisurely  ahead  of  him.  As  a  bride,  Maria 
puzzled  him  no  less  than  she  had  done  at  their  first 
meeting,  and  the  riddle  of  her  personality  he  felt 
to  be  still  hopelessly  unsolved.  Was  it  merely 
repression  of  manner  that  annoyed  him  in  her? 
he  questioned,  or  was  it,  as  he  had  once  believed,  the 
simple  lack  of  emotional  power  ?  Her  studied  speech, 
her  conventional  courtesy,  seemed  to  confirm  the 
first  impression  she  had  made ;  then  her  dark,  troubled 
gaze  and  the  sullen  droop  of  her  mouth  returned  to 
give  the  lie  to  what  he  could  but  feel  to  be  a  possible 
misjudgment.  In  the  end,  he  concluded  wisely 
enough  that,  like  the  most  of  us,  she  was  probably 
but  plastic  matter  for  the  mark  of  circumstance — 
that  her  development  would  be,  after  all,  according 
to  the  events  she  was  called  upon  to  face.  The 
possibility  that  Destiny,  which  is  temperament, 
should  have  already  selected  her  as  one  of  those  who 
come  into  their  spiritual  heritage  only  through 
defeat,  did  not  enter  into  the  half-humorous  con- 
sideration with  which  he  now  regarded  her. 

Turning  presently  into  the  sunken  road  by  the 
ice-pond,  he  came  in  a  little  while  to  the  overgrown 
fence  surrounding  the  Blake  farm.  In  the  tobacco 
field  beyond  the  garden  he  saw  Christopher's  blue- 


FLETCHER  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT  181 

clad  figure  rising  from  a  blur  of  green,  and,  follow- 
ing the  ragged  path  amid  the  yarrow,  he  joined  the 
young  man  where  he  stood  at  work. 

As  the  lawyer  reached  his  side  Christopher  glanced 
up  indifferently  to  give  a  nod  of  welcome.  His 
crop  had  all  been  cut,  and  he  was  now  engaged  in 
hanging  the  wilting  plants  from  long  rails  supported 
by  forked  poles.  At  his  feet  there  were  little  green 
piles  of  tobacco,  and  around  him  from  the  sunbaked 
earth  rose  a  headless  army  of  bruised  and  bleeding 
stubble. 

So  thriftless  were  the  antiquated  methods  he 
followed  that  the  lawyer,  as  he  watched  him,  could 
barely  repress  a  smile.  Two  hundred  years  ago 
the  same  crop  was  probably  raised,  cut  and  cured 
on  the  same  soil  in  the  same  careless  and  primitive 
fashion.  Beneath  all  the  seeming  indifference  to 
success  or  failure  Carraway  discerned  something 
of  that  blind  reliance  upon  chance  which  is  apt  to 
be  the  religious  expression  of  a  rural  and  isolated 
people. 

"Yes,  I'll  leave  it  out  awhile,  I  reckon,  unless  the 
weather  changes,"  replied  Christopher,  in  answer 
to  the  lawyer's  inquiry. 

' '  Well ,  it  promises  fair  enough , ' '  returned  Carraway 
pleasantly.  "They  tell  me,  by  the  way,  that  the 
yellow,  sun-cured  leaf  is  coming  into  favour  in  the 
market.     You  don't  try  that,  eh?" 

Christopher  shook  his  head,  and,  kneeling  on  the 
ground,  carelessly  sorted  his  pile  of  plants.  ' '  I 
learned  to  cure  it  indoors,"  he  answered,  "and  I 
reckon  I'll  keep  to  the  old  way.  The  dark  leaf  is 
what    the    people    about    here   like — it    makes    the 


i82  THE  DELIVERANCE 

sweeter  chew,  they  think.  As  for  me,  I  hate  the  very 
smell  of  it." 

"That's  odd,  and  I'll  wager  you're  the  only  man 
in  the  county  who  neither  smokes  nor  chews." 

"Oh,  I  handle  it,  you  see.  The  smell  and  the 
stain  of  it  are  well  soaked  in.  I  sometimes  wonder 
if  all  the  water  in  the  river  of  Jordan  could  wash 
away   the    blood    of    the    tobacco    worm." 

With  a  laugh  in  which  there  was  more  bitterness 
than  mirth,  he  stretched  out  his  big  bronzed  hands, 
and  Carraway  saw  that  the  nails  and  finger-tips 
were  dyed  bright  green. 

"It  does  leave  its  mark,"  observed  the  lawyer, 
and  felt  instantly  that  the  speech  was  inane. 

Christopher  went  on  quietly  with  his  work,  gather- 
ing up  the  plants  and  hanging  the  slit  stalks  over 
the  long  poles,  while  the  peculiar  heavy  odour  of 
the  freshly  cut  crop  floated  unpleasantly  about 
them. 

For  a  time  Carraway  watched  him  in  silence,  his 
eyes  dwelling  soberly  upon  the  stalwart  figure. 
In  spite  of  himself,  the  mere  beauty  of  outline 
touched  him  with  a  feeling  of  sadness,  and  when  he 
spoke  at  last  it  was  in  a  lowered  tone. 

"You  have,  perhaps,  surmised  that  my  call  is 
not  entirely  one  of  pleasure,"  he  began  awkwardly; 
"that  I  am,  above  all,  the  bearer  of  a  message  from 
Mr.    Fletcher." 

"From  Fletcher?"  repeated  Christopher  coolly. 
"Well,  I  never  heard  a  message  of  his  yet  that  wasn't 
better  left  undelivered." 

"I  am  sure  I  am  correct  in  saying,"  Carraway 
went  on  steadily  and  not  without  definite  purpose, 


FLETCHER  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT  183 

' '  that  he  hopes  you  will  be  generous  enough  to  let 
bygones  be  bygones." 

Christopher  nodded. 

"He  feels,  of  course,"  pursued  the  lawyer,  "that 
his  obligation  to  you  is  greater  than  he  can  hope 
to  repay.  Indeed,  I  think  if  you  knew  the  true 
state  of  the  case  your  judgment  of  him  would  be 
softened.  The  boy  who  so  nearly  lost  his  life  is  the 
one  human  being  whom  Fletcher  loves  better  than 
himself — better  than  his  own  soul,  I  had  almost 
said." 

Christopher  looked  up  attentively.  "Who'd  have 
thought  it,"   he   muttered  beneath   his   breath. 

Judging  that  he  had  at  last  made  a  beginning  at 
the  plastering  over  of  old  scars,  Carraway  went  on  as 
if  the  other  had  not  spoken.  "So  jealous  is  his 
affection  in  this  instance,  that  I  believe  his  grand- 
daughter's marriage  is  something  of  a  relief  to  him. 
He  is  positively  impatient  of  any  influence  over  the 
boy  except  his  own — and  that,  I  fear,  is  hardly  for 
good." 

Picking  up  a  clod  of  earth,  Christopher  crumbled 
it  slowly  to  dust.  "So  the  little  chap  comes  in  for 
all  this,  does  he?"  he  asked,  as  his  gaze  swept  over 
the  wide  fields  in  the  distance.  "He  comes  in  for  all 
that  is  mine  by  right,  and  Fletcher's  intention  is, 
I  dare  say,  that  he'll  reflect  honour  upon  the  theft?" 

"That  he'll  reflect  honour  upon  the  name — yes. 
It  is  the  ambition  of  his  grandfather,  I  believe, 
that  the  lad  should  grow  up  to  be  respected  in  the 
county — to  stand  for  something  more  than  he  himself 
has  done." 

"Well,  he'll  hardly  stand  for  more  of  a  rascal," 


i84  THE  DELIVERANCE 

remarked  Christopher  quietly;  and  then,  as  his  eyes 
rested  on  the  landscape,  he  appeared  to  follow 
moodily  some  suggestion  which  had  half  escaped 
him.  "Then  the  way  to  touch  the  man  is  through 
the  boy,  I  presume,"  he  said  abruptly. 

Arrested  by  the  words,  the  lawyer  looked  down 
quickly,  but  the  other,  still  kneeling  upon  the  ground, 
was  fingering  a  plant  he  had  just  picked  up.  "Fine 
leaves,  eh?"  was  the  remark  that  met  Carraway's 
sudden  start. 

"To  touch  him,  yes,"  replied  the  lawyer  thought- 
fully. "Whatever  heart  he  has  is  given  to  his 
grandson,  and  when  you  saved  the  lad's  life  the 
other  day  you  placed  Fletcher  in  your  debt  for 
good.  Of  his  gratitude  I  am  absolutely  sure,  and 
as  a  slight  expression  of  it  he  asked  me  to  hand 
you   this." 

He  drew  the  check  from  his  pocket,  and  leaning 
over,  held  it  out  to  Christopher.  To  his  surprise, 
the  young  man  took  it  from  him,  but  the  next  moment 
he  had  torn  it  roughly  in  two  and  handed  it  back 
again.  "So  you  may  as  well  return  it  to  him," 
he  said,  and,  rising  slowly  from  the  ground,  he  stood 
pushing  the  loose   plants  together  with  his  foot. 

"I  feared  as  much,"  observed  Carraway,  placing 
the  torn  slip  of  paper  in  his  pocket.  "Your  grudge 
is  of  too  long  standing  to  mend  in  a  day.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  I  have  a  request  to  make  of  you  from 
the  boy  himself  which  I  hope  you  will  not  refuse. 
He  has  taken  a  liking  to  you,  it  appears,  and  as  he 
will  probably  be  ill  for  some  weeks,  he  begs  that  you 
will  come  back  with  me  to  see  him." 

He  finished  a  little  wistfully,  and  stood  looking  up 


FLETCHER  IN  A  NEW  LIGHT  185 

at  the  young  man  who  towered  a  good  head  and 
shoulders  above  him. 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you  once  for  all,"  returned 
Christopher,  choking  over  the  words,  "that  you've 
given  me  as  much  of  Fletcher  as  I  can  stand  and 
a  long  sight  more  than  I  want.  If  anybody  but 
you  had  brought  me  that  piece  of  paper  with  Bill 
Fletcher's  name  tagged  to  it  I'd  have  rammed  it 
down  his  throat  before  this.  As  it  is,  you  may  tell 
him  from  me  that  when  I  have  paid  him  to  the  last 
drop  what  I  owe  him — and  not  till  then — will  I 
listen  to  any  message  he  chooses  to  send  me.  I 
hate  him,  and  that's  my  affair;  I  mean  to  be  even 
with  him  some  day,  and  I  reckon  that's  my  affair, 
too.  One  thing  I'm  pretty  sure  of,  and  that  is 
that  it's  not  yours.  Is  your  visit  over,  or  will  you 
come  into  the  house?" 

"I'll  be  going  back  now,"  replied  the  lawyer, 
shrinking  from  before  the  outburst,  "but  if  I  may 
have  the  pleasure,  I'll  call  upon  your  mother  in 
the  morning." 

Christopher  shook  the  hand  which  he  held  out, 
and  then  spoke  again  in  the  same  muffled  voice. 
"You  may  tell  him  one  thing  more,"  he  pursued, 
"and  that  is,  that  it's  the  gospel  truth  I  didn't  know 
it  was  his  grandson  in  the  wagon.  Why,  man, 
there's  not  a  Fletcher  on  this  earth  whose  neck 
I'd  lift  my  little  finger  to  save  !" 

Then,  as  Carraway  passed  slowly  along  the  ragged 
path  to  the  sunken  road,  he  stood  looking  after 
him  with  a  heavy  frown  upon  his  brow.  His  rage 
was  at  white  heat  within  him,  and,  deny  it  as  he 
would,  he  knew  now  that  within  the  last  few  weeks 


186  THE  DELIVERANCE 

his  hatred  had  been  strengthened  by  the  force  of  a 
newer  passion  which  had  recoiled  upon  itself.  Since 
his  parting  with  Maria  Fletcher  the  day  before,  he 
had  not  escaped  for  a  breath  from  her  haunting 
presence.  She  was  in  his  eyes  and  in  the  air  he 
breathed;  the  smell  of  flowers  brought  her  sweetness 
to  him,  and  the  very  sunshine  lying  upon  the  Septem- 
ber fields  thrilled  him  like  the  warmth  of  her  rare 
smile.  He  found  himself  fleeing  like  a  hunted  animal 
from  the  memory  which  he  could  not  put  away, 
and  despite  the  almost  frenzied  haste  with  which 
he  presently  fell  to  work,  he  saw  always  the  light 
and  gracious  figure  which  had  come  to  him  along 
the  red  clay  road.  The  fervour  which  had  shone 
suddenly  in  her  eyes,  the  quiver  of  her  mouth 
as  she  turned  away,  the  poise  of  her  head,  the  gentle, 
outstretched  hand  he  had  repulsed,  the  delicate 
curve  of  her  wrist  beneath  the  falling  sleeve,  the 
very  lace  on  her  bosom  fluttering  in  the  still  weather 
as  if  a  light  wind  were  blowing — these  things  returned 
to  torture  him  like  the  delirium  of  fever.  Appealing 
as  the  memory  was,  it  aroused  in  his  distorted  mind 
all  the  violence  of  his  old  fury,  and  he  felt  again  the 
desire  for  revenge  working  like  madness  in  his  blood. 
It  was  as  if  every  emotion  of  his  life  swept  on,  to 
empty  itself  at  last  into  the  wide  sea  of  his  hatred. 


CHAPTER   VII 
In   Which    Hero    and    Villain    Appear   as    One 

A  month  later  Christopher's  conversation  with 
Carraway  returned  to  him,  when,  coming  one  morning 
from  the  house  with  his  dogs  at  his  heels  and  his 
squirrel  gun  on  his  shoulder,  he  found  Will  Fletcher 
and  a  troop  of  spotted  foxhound  puppies  awaiting 
him  outside  the  whitewashed  gate. 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you  a  moment,  Mr.  Blake," 
began  the  boy,  in  the  assured  tones  of  the  rich 
man  to  the  poor.  The  Blake  hounds  made  a  sudden 
rush  at  the  puppies,  to  be  roughly  ordered  to  heel 
by  their  master. 

"Well,  fire  away,"  returned  the  young  man 
coolly.  "But  I  may  as  well  warn  you  that  it's 
more  than  likely  it  will  be  a  clear  waste  of  breath. 
I'll  have  nothing  to  do  with  you  or  your  sort." 
He  leaned  on  his  gun  and  looked  indifferently  over 
the  misty  fields,  where  the  autumn's  crop  of  life- 
everlasting  shone  silver  in  the  sunrise. 

"I  don't  see  why  you  hate  me  so,"  said  the  boy 
wonderingly,  checking  the  too  frolicsome  adventures 
of  the  puppies  in  the  direction  of  the  hounds.  "I've 
always  liked  you,  you  know,  even  before  you  saved 
my  life — because  you're  the  straightest  shot  and 
the   best   trainer   of   hounds    about    here.     Grandpa 

187 


188  THE  DELIVERANCE 

says  I  mustn't  have  anything  to  do  with  you,  but  I 
will  anyway,  if  I  please." 
'  "Oh,  you  will,  will  you?"  was  Christopher's  re- 
joinder, as  he  surveyed  him  with  the  humorous 
contempt  which  the  strong  so  often  feel  for  the 
weak  of  the  same  sex.  "Well,  I  suppose  I'll  have 
my  say  in  the  matter,  and  strangely  enough  I'm  on 
your  grandfather's  side.  The  clearer  you  keep  of 
me  the  better  it  will  be  for  you,  my  man." 

"That's  just  like  grandpa  all  over  again,"  protested 
the  boy;  "and  when  it  comes  to  that,  he  needn't 
know  anything  about  it — he  doesn't  know  half  that 
I  do,  anyway;  he  blusters  so  about  things." 

Christopher's  gaze  returned  slowly  from  the 
landscape  and  rested  inquiringly  upon  the  youthful 
features  before  him,  seeking  in  them  some  definite 
promise  of  the  future".  The  girlish  look  of  the 
mouth  irritated  him  ludicrously,  and  half -forgotten 
words  of  Carraway's  awoke  within  his  memory. 

"Fletcher  loves  but  one  thing  on  this  earth,  and 
his  ambition  is  that  the  boy  shall  be  respected  in 
the  county."  A  Fletcher  respected  in  the  very 
stronghold  of  a  Blake  !  He  laughed  aloud,  and  then 
spoke  hurriedly  as  if  to  explain  the  surprising  mirth 
in  his  outburst. 

"So  you  came  to  pay  a  visit  to  your  nearest 
neighbour  and  are  afraid  your  grandfather  will  find 
it  out?     Then  you'll  get  a  spanking,  I  dare  say." 

Will  blushed  furiously,  and  stood  awkwardly 
scraping  up  a  pile  of  sand  with  the  sole  of  his  boot. 
"I'm  not  a  baby,"  he  blurted  out  at  last,  "and  I'll 
go  where  I  like,  whatever  he  says." 

"He  keeps  a  pretty  close  watch  over  you,  I  reckon. 


HERO  AND  VILLAIN  AS  ONE  189 

Perhaps  he's  afraid  you'll  become  a  man  and  step 
into  his  shoes  before  he  knows  it." 

"Oh,  he  can't  find  me  out,  all  the  same,"  said  the 
boy  slyly.  "He  thinks  I've  gone  over  to  Mr.  Morri- 
son's now  to  do  my  Greek — he's  crazy  about  my 
learning  Greek,  and  I  hate  it — and,  you  bet  your 
life,  he'll  be  hopping  mad  if  he  finds  I've  given  him 
the  slip." 

"He  will,  will  he?"  remarked  Christopher,  and 
the  thought  appeared  to  afford  him  a  peculiar  satis- 
faction. For  the  first  time  the  frown  left  his  brow 
and  his  tone  lost  its  insolent  contempt.  Then  he 
came  forward  suddenly  and  laid  his  hand  upon  the 
gate.  "Well,  I  can't  waste  my  morning,"  he  said. 
"You'd  better  run  back  home  and  play  the  piano. 
I'm  off." 

"I  don't  play  the  piano — I'm  not  a  girl,"  declared 
the  boy ;  ' '  and  what  I  want  is  to  get  you  to  train  my 
hounds  for  me.  I'd  like  to  go  hunting  with  you 
to-day." 

"Oh,  I  can't  be  bothered  with  babies,"  sneered 
Christopher  in  reply.  "You'd  fall  down,  most  likely, 
and  scratch  your  knees  on  the  briers,  and  then  you'd 
run  straight  home  to  blab  to  Fletcher." 

"I  won't!"  cried  Will  angrily.  "I'll  never  blab. 
He'd  be  too  mad,  I  tell  you,  if  he  found  it  out." 

"Well,  I  don't  want  you  anyhow,  so  get  out  of 
my  way.  You'd  better  look  sharp  after  your  pups 
or  the  hounds  will  chew  them  up." 

The  boy  stood  midway  of  the  road,  kicking  the 
dust  impatiently  ahead  of  him.  His  lips  quivered 
with  disappointment,  and  the  expression  gave  them 
a  singularly  wistful  beauty. 


igo  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"I'll  give  you  all  my  pocket  money  if  you'll  take 
me  with  you,"  he  pleaded  suddenly,  stretching  out 
a  handful  of  silver. 

With  a  snarl  Christopher  pushed  his  arm  roughly 
aside.  "Put  up  your  money,  you  fool,"  he  said; 
"I  don't  want  it." 

"Oh,  you  don't,  don't  you?"  taunted  the  other, 
raging  with  wounded  pride.  "Why,  grandpa  says 
you're  as  poor  as  Job's  turkey  after  it  was 
plucked." 

It  was  an  old  joke  of  Fletcher's,  who,  in  giving 
utterance  to  it,  little  thought  of  the  purpose  it  would 
finally  be  made  to  serve,  for  Christopher,  halting 
suddenly  at  the  words,  swung  round  in  the  cloud  of 
dust  and  stood  regarding  the  grandson  of  his  enemy 
with  a  thoughtful  and  troubled  look.  The  lawyer's 
words  sounded  so  distinctly  in  his  ears  that  he 
glanced  at  the  boy  with  a  start,  fearing  that  they 
had  been  spoken  aloud:  "His  grandson  is  the  sole 
living  thing  that  Fletcher  loves."  Again  the  recol- 
lection brought  a  laugh  from  him,  which  he  carelessly 
threw  off  upon  the  frolics  of  the  puppies.  Then 
the  frown  settled  slowly  back  upon  his  brow,  and 
the  brutal  look,  which  Carraway  had  found  so  dis- 
figuring, crept  out  about  his  mouth. 

"I  tell  you  honestly,"  he  said  gruffly,  "that  if  you 
knew  what  was  good  for  you,  you'd  scoot  back  along 
that  road  a  good  deal  faster  than  you  came.  If 
you're  such  a  headstrong  fool  as  to  want  to  come 
with  me,  however,  I  reckon  you  may  do  it.  One 
thing,  though,  I'll  have  no  puling  ways." 

The  boy  jumped  with  pleasure.  "Why,  I  knew 
all    the    time    I'd    get    around    you,"    he    answered. 


HERO  AND  VILLAIN  AS  ONE  191 

"  I  always  do  when  I  try;  and  may  I  shoot  some  with 
your  shotgun?" 

"I'll  teach  you,  perhaps." 

"When?  Shall  we  start  now?  Call  the  dogs 
together — they're  nosing  in  the  ditch." 

Without  taking  the  trouble  to  reply,  Christopher 
strode  off  briskly  along  the  road,  and  after  waiting 
a  moment  to  assemble  his  scattered  puppies,  Will 
caught  up  with  him  and  broke  into  a  running  pace 
at  his  side.  As  they  swung  onward  the  two  shadows 
— the  long  one  and  the  short  one — stretched  straight 
and  black  behind  them  in  the  sunlight. 

"You're  the  biggest  man  about  here,  aren't  you?" 
the  boy  asked  suddenly,  glancing  upward  with  frank 
admiration. 

"I  dare  say.      What  of  it?" 

"Oh,  nothing;  and  your  father  was  the  biggest 
man  of  his  time,  Sol  Peterkin  says;  and  Aunt  Mehit- 
able  remembers  your  grandfather,  and  he  was  the 
tallest  man  alive  in  his  day.  Who'll  be  the  biggest 
when  you  die,  I  wonder?  And,  I  say,  isn't  it  a  pity 
that  such  tall  men  had  to  live  in  such  a  little  old 
house — I  don't  see  how  they  ever  got  in  the  doors 
without  stooping.  Do  you  have  to  stoop  when  you 
go  in  and  out. 

Christopher  nodded. 

"Well,  I  shouldn't  like  that,"  pursued  Will; 
"and  I'm  glad  I  don't  live  in  such  a  little  place. 
Now,  the  doors  at  the  Hall  are  so  high  that  I  could 
stand  on  your  shoulders  and  go  in  without  bending 
my  head.  Let's  try  it  some  day.  Grandpa  wouldn't 
know." 

Christopher  turned  and  looked  at  him  suddenly. 


i92  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"What  would  you  say  to  going  'possum  hunting  one 
night?"  he  asked  in  a  queer  voice. 

"Whoopee  !"  cried  the  boy,  tossing  his  hat  in  the 
air.     "Will  you  take  me?" 

"Well,  it's  hard  work,  you  know,"  went  on  the  other 
thoughtfully.  "You'd  have  to  get  up  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  and  steal  out  of  the  window  without 
your  grandfather's  knowing  it." 

"  I  should  say  so  !" 

"We'd  tramp  till  morning,  probably,  with  the 
hounds,  and  Tom  Spade  would  come  along  to  bring 
his  lanterns.  Then  when  it  was  over  we'd  wind  up 
for  drinks  at  his  store.  It's  great  sport,  I  tell  you, 
but  it  takes  a  man  to  stand  it." 

"Oh,  I'm  man  enough  by  now." 

"Not  according  to  your  grandfather's  thinking." 

"What  does  he  know  about  it?  He's  just  an  old 
fogy  himself." 

"We'll  see,  we'll  see.  If  he  wants  to  keep  you 
tied  to  nurse's  strings  too  long,  we  must  play  him  a 
trick.  Why,  when  I  was  fourteen  I  could  shoot 
with  any  man  about  here — and  drink  with  him,  too, 
for  that  matter.     Nobody  kept  me  back,  you  see." 

The  boy  looked  up  at  Christopher  with  sparkling 
eyes,  in  which  the  eternal  hero-worship  of  youth 
was  already  kindled. 

"Oh,  you're  splendid!"  he  exclaimed,  "and  I'm 
going  to  be  just  like  you.  Grandpa  shan't  keep  me 
a  baby  any  longer,  I  can  tell  you.  All  this  Greek, 
now — he's  crazy  about  my  learning  it — and  I  hate  it. 
Do  you  know  Greek?" 

Christopher  laughed  shortly.  "Where  does  he 
live?"  he  inquired  mockingly. 


HERO  AND  VILLAIN  AS  ONE  193 

For  a  moment  the  boy  looked  at  him  perplexed. 
"It's  a  language,"  he  replied  gravely;  "and  grandpa 
says  it  comes  handy  in  a  bargain,  but  I  won't  learn 
it.  I  hate  school,  anyway,  and  he  swears  he's  going 
to  send  me  back  in  two  weeks.  I  hope  I'll  fall  ill, 
and  then  he  can't." 

"In  two  weeks,"  repeated  the  other  reflectively; 
"well,  a  good  deal  may  happen,  I  reckon,  in  two 
weeks." 

"Oh,  lots!"  agreed  the  boy  with  enthusiasm; 
"you'll  let  me  chase  rabbits  with  you  every  day — 
won't  you?  and  teach  me  to  shoot?  and  we'll  go 
'possum  hunting  one  night  and  not  get  home  till 
morning.  It  will  be  easy  enough  to  fool  grandpa. 
I'll  take  care  of  that,  and  if  Aunt  Saidie  finds  it 
out  she'll  never  tell  him — she  never  does  tell  on  me. 
Here,  let  me  take  the  gun  awhile,  will  you?" 

Christopher  handed  him  the  gun,  and  they  went 
on  rapidly  along  the  old  road  under  the  honey 
locusts  that  grew  beyond  the  bend.  They  were 
nearing  the  place  where  Christopher,  as  a  child  of 
twelve,  had  waited  with  his  bird-gurtin  the  bushes  to 
shoot  Fletcher  when  he  came  in  sight,  and  now  as 
the  recollection  returned  to  him  he  unconsciously 
slackened  his  pace  and  cast  his  eyes  about  for  the 
spot  where  he  had  stood.  It  was  all  there  just  as 
it  had  been  that  morning — the  red  clumps  of  sumach 
covered  with  gray  dust,  the  dried  underbrush  piled 
along  the  fence,  and  the  brown  honey  shucks  strewn 
in  the  sunny  road.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
was  glad  at  this  instant  that  he  had  not  killed  Fletcher 
then — that  his  hand  had  been  stayed  that  day  to  fall 
the  heavier,  it  might  be,  at  the  appointed  time. 


i94  THE  DELIVERANCE 

The  boy  still  chatted  eagerly,  and  when  presently 
the  hounds  scented  a  rabbit  in  the  sassafras  beyond 
the  fence,  he  started  with  a  shout  at  the  heels  of  the 
pursuing  pack.  Swinging  himself  over  the  brush- 
wood, Christopher  followed  slowly  across  the  waste 
of  life-everlasting,  tearing  impatiently  through  the 
flowering  net  which  the  wild  potato  vine  cast  about 
his  feet. 

Through  the  brilliant  October  day  they  hunted 
over  the  ragged  fields,  resting  at  noon  to  eat  the 
slices  of  bread  and  bacon  which  Christopher  had 
brought  in  his  pocket.  As  they  lay  at  full  length 
in  the  sunshine  upon  the  life-everlasting,  the  young 
man's  gaze  flew  like  a  bird  across  the  landscape — 
where  the  gaily  decorated  autumn  fallows  broke 
in  upon  the  bare  tobacco  fields  like  gaudy  patches 
on  a  homely  garment — to  rest  upon  the  far-off 
huddled  chimneys  of  Blake  Hall.  For  a  time  he 
looked  steadily  upon  them;  then,  turning  on  his 
side,  he  drew  his  harvest  hat  over  his  eyes  and  began 
a  story  of  his  early  adventures  behind  the  hounds, 
speaking  in  half -gay,  half -bitter  tones. 

In  the  mild  autumn  weather  a  faint  haze  overhung 
the  landscape,  changing  from  violet  to  gray  as  the 
shadows  rose  or  fell.  Around  them  the  unploughed 
wasteland  swept  clear  to  the  distant  road,  which 
wound  like  a  muddy  river  beside  the  naked  tobacco 
fields.  Lying  within  the  slight  depression  of  a 
hilltop,  the  two  were  buried  deep  amid  the  life- 
everlasting,  which  shed  its  soft  dust  upon  them 
and  filled  their  nostrils  with  its  ghostly  fragrance. 

As  he  went  on,  Christopher  found  a  savage  delight 
in  mocking  the  refinements  of  the  bov's  language. 


HERO  AND  VILLAIN  AS  ONE  195 

in  tossing  him  coarse  expressions  and  brutal  oaths 
much  as  he  tossed  scraps  to  the  hounds,  in  touch- 
ing with  vulgar  scorn  all  the  conventional  ideals  of 
the  household — obedience,  duty,  family  affection, 
religion  even.  While  he  sank  still  lower  in  that 
defiant  self-respect  to  which  he  had  always  clung 
doggedly  until  to-day,  there  was  a  fierce  satisfaction 
in  the  knowledge  that  as  he  fell  he  dragged  Will 
Fletcher  with  him — that  he  had  sold  himself  to  the 
devil  and  got  his  price. 

This  unholy  joy  was  still  possessing  him  when 
at  nightfall,  exhausted,  dirty,  brier-scratched,  and 
bearing  their  strings  of  game,  they  reached  Tom 
Spade's,  and  Christopher  demanded  raw  whisky 
in  the  little  room  behind  the  store.  Sol  Peterkin 
was  there,  astride  his  barrel,  and  as  they  entered 
he  gave  breath  to  a  low  whistle  of  astonishment. 

"Why,  your  grandpa's  been  sweepin'  up  the 
county  for  you!"  he  exclaimed  to  Will. 

"So  he's  found  out  I  wasn't  at  the  Morrisons'," 
said  the  boy  a  little  nervously.  "I'd  better  be  going 
home,  I  reckon,  and  get  it  over. " 

Christopher  drained  his  glass  of  whisky,  and  then, 
refilling  it,  pushed  it  across  the  table. 

"What!  Aren't  you  man  enough  to  swallow  a 
thimbleful?"  he  asked,  with  a  laugh.  His  face 
was  flushed,  and  the  dust  of  the  roads  showed  in 
streaks  upon  his  forehead,  where  the  crown  of  his 
straw  hat  had  drawn  a  circle  around  his  moist  fair 
hair.  The  hand  with  which  he  touched  the  glass 
trembled  slightly,  and  his  eyes  were  so  reckless  that, 
after  an  instant's  frightened  silence,  Peterkin  cried 
out    in    alarm : 


i96  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"For  the  Lord's  sake,  Mr.  Christopher,  you're  not 
yourself — it's  the  way  his  father  went,  you  know  !" 

"What  of  it?"  demanded  Christopher,  turning 
his  dangerous  look  upon  the  little  man.  "If  there's 
a  merrier  way  to  go,  I'd  like  to  know  it. " 

Peterkin  drew  over  to  the  table  and  laid  a 
restraining  hold  on  the  boy's  arm.  "Put  that  down, 
sonny,"  he  said.  "I  couldn't  stand  it,  and  you 
may  be  sure  it'll  do  you  no  good.  It  will  turn  your 
stomach    clean   inside   out." 

"He  took  it,"  replied  the  boy  stubbornly,  "and 
I'll  drink  it  if  he  says  so."  He  lifted  the  glass  and 
stood  looking  inquiringly  at  the  man  across  from 
him.  "Shall  I  drink  it?"  he  asked,  and  waited  with 
a  boyish  swagger. 

Christopher  gave  a  short  nod.  "Oh,  not  if  you're 
afraid  of  it,"  he  responded  roughly;  and  then,  as 
Will  threw  back  his  head  and  the  whisky  touched 
his  lips,  the  other  struck  out  suddenly  and  sent  the 
glass  shivering  to  the  floor.  "Go  home,  you  fool!" 
he  cried,  "and  keep  clear  of  me  for  good  and  all." 

A  moment  afterward  he  had  passed  from  the 
room,  through  the  store,  and  was  out  upon  the  road. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
Between  the  Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea 

There  was  a  cheerful  blaze  in  the  old  lady's 
parlour,  and  she  was  sitting  placidly  in  her 
Elizabethan  chair,  the  yellow  cat  dozing  at  her  foot- 
stool. Lila  paced  slowly  up  and  down  the  room, 
her  head  bent  a  little  sideways,  as  she  listened  to 
Tucker's  cheerful  voice  reading  the  evening  chapter 
from  the  family  Bible.  His  crutch,  still  strapped  to 
his  right  shoulder,  trailed  behind  him  on  the  floor, 
and  the  smoky  oil  lamp  threw  his  eccentric  shadow 
on  the  whitewashed  wall,  where  it  hung  grimacing 
like  a  grotesque  from  early  Gothic  art. 

''Many  waters  cannot  quench  love,  neither  can  the 
floods  drown  it,"  he  read  in  his  even  tones;  "if  a 
man  would  give  all  the  substance  of  his  house  for  love, 
it  would  utterly  be  contemned. ' ' 

The  old  lady  tapped  the  arm  of  her  chair  and 
turned  her  sightless  eyes  upon  the  Bible,  as  if  Solomon 
in  person  stood  there  awaiting  judgment. 

"  I  always  liked  that  verse,  brother, "  she  remarked, 
"  though  I  am  not  sure  that  I  consider  it  entirely 
proper  reading  for  the  young.  Aren't  you  tired 
walking,  Lila?" 

"Oh,  no,  mother." 

"Well,  we  mustn't  take  the  Scriptures  literally, 
197 


198  THE  DELIVERANCE 

you  know,  my  child;  if  we  did,  I  fear  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  would  come  of  it — and  surely  it  is  a  pity 
to  magnify  the  passion  of  love  when  so  very  many 
estimable  persons  get  along  quite  comfortably  with- 
out it.  You  remember  my  remarking  how  happy 
Miss  Belinda  Morrison  always  appeared  to  be,  and 
so  far  as  I  know  she  never  had  a  suitor  in  her  life, 
though  she  lived  to  be  upward  of  eighty." 

"Oh,  mother!  and  yet  you  were  so  madly  in  love 
with  father — you  remember  the  fancy  ball." 

"The  fancy  ball  occupied  only  one  night,  my 
dear,  and  I've  had  almost  seventy  years.  I  married 
for  love,  as  you  certainly  know — at  my  age,  I  suppose 
I  might  as  well  admit  it — but  the  marriage  happened 
to  be  also  entirely  suitable,  and  I  hope  that  I  should 
never  have  been  guilty  of  anything  so  indelicate  as 
to  fall  in  love  with  a  gentleman  who  wasn't  a  desirable 
match.  " 

Lila  flushed  and  bit  her  lip. 

"I  don't  care  about  stations  in  life,  nor  blood,  nor 
anything   like   that,"    she   protested 

The  old  lady  sighed.  "We  won't  have  any  more 
of  Solomon,  Tucker,"  she  observed.  "I  fear  he 
will  put  notions  into  the  child's  head.  Not  care 
about  blood,  indeed !  What  are  we  coming  to,  I 
wonder?  Well,  well,  I  suppose  it  is  what  I  deserve 
for  allowing  myself  to  fall  so  madly  in  love  with 
your  father.  When  I  look  back  now  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  could  have  achieved  quite  as  much  with  a 
great  deal  less  expenditure  of  emotion." 

"Now,  now,  Lucy,"  said  Tucker,  closing  the  gilt 
clasps  of  the  Bible,  "you're  not  yet  seventy,  and 
by  the  time  you  reach  eighty  you  will    see    things 


BETWEEN  DEVIL  AND  DEEP  SEA      199 

clearer.  I'm  a  good  deal  younger  than  you,  but 
I'm  two-thirds  in  the  grave  already,  which  makes 
a  difference.  My  life's  been  long  and  pleasant  as 
it  is,  but  when  I  glance  back  upon  it  now  I  tell  you 
the  things  I  regret  least  in  it  are  my  youthful  follies. 
A  man  must  be  very  far  in  his  dotage,  indeed,  when  he 
begins  to  wear  a  long  face  over  the  sharp  breaths  that 
he  drew  in  youth.  I  came  very  near  ruining  myself 
for  a  woman  once,  and  the  fact  that  I  was  ready 
to  do  it — even  though  I  didn't — is  what  in  the  past 
I  like  best  to  recall  to-day.  It  makes  it  all  easier 
and  better,  somehow,  and  it  seems  to  put  a  zest 
into  the  hours  I  spend  now  on  my  old  bench.  To 
have  had  one  emotion  that  was  bigger  than  you 
or  your  universe  is  to  have  had  life,  my  dear." 

The  old  lady  wiped  her  eyes.  "It  may  be  so, 
brother,  it  may  be  so,"  she  admitted;  "but  not 
before  Lila.     Is  that  you,  Christopher?" 

The  young  man  came  in  and  crossed  slowly  to  the 
fire,  bending  for  an  instant  over  her  chair.  He  was 
conscious  suddenly  that  his  clothes  smelled  of  the 
fields  and  that  the  cold  water  of  the  well  had  not 
cleansed  his  face  and  hands.  All  at  once  it  came 
to  him  with  something  of  a  shock  that  this  bare, 
refined  poverty  was  beyond  his  level — that  about 
himself  there  was  a  coarseness,  a  brutality  even,  that 
made  him  shrink  from  contact  with  these  others — 
with  his  mother,  with  Lila,  with  poor,  maimed  Tucker 
in  his.  cotton  suit.  Was  it  only  a  distinction  in 
manner,  he  wondered  resentfully,  or  did  the  difference 
lie  still  deeper  in  some  unlikeness  of  soul  ?  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life  he  felt  ill  at  ease  in  the  presence 
of  those  he  loved,  and  as  his  eyes  dwelt  moodily  on 


200  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Lila's  graceful  figure — upon  the  swell  of  her  low 
bosom,  her  swaying  hips,  and  the  free  movement  of 
her  limbs — he  asked  himself  bitterly  if  he  had  aught 
in  common  with  so  delicate  and  rare  a  thing?  And 
she?  Was  her  blithe  acquiescence,  after  all,  but 
an  assumed  virtue,  to  whose  outward  rags  she  clung? 
Was  it  possible  that  there  was  here  no  inward 
rebellion,  none  of  that  warfare  against  Destiny 
which  at  once  inspirited  and  embittered  his  heart  ? 

His  face  grew  dark,  and  Uncle  Boaz,  coming  in 
to  stir  the  fire,  glanced  up  at  him  and  sighed. 

"You  sho'  do  look  down  in  de  mouf,  Marse  Chris," 
he  observed. 

Christopher  started  and  then  laughed  blankly. 
"Well,  I'm  not  proof  against  troubles,  I  reckon," 
he  returned.  "They're  things  none  of  us  can  keep 
clear  of,   you  know." 

Uncle  Boaz  chuckled  under  his  breath.  "Go 
'way  f'om  yer,  Marse  Chris;  w'at  you  know  'bout 
trouble — you   ain'     even   mah'ed   yet." 

"Now,  now,  Boaz,  don't  be  putting  any  ideas 
against  marriage  in  his  head,"  broke  in  the  old  lady. 
"He  has  remained  single  too  long  as  it  is,  for,  as 
dear  old  Bishop  Deane  used  to  say,  it  is  surely  the 
duty  of  every  gentleman  to  take  upon  himself  the 
provision  of  at  least  one  helpless  female.  Not  that 
I  wish  you  to  enter  into  marriage  hastily,  my  son, 
or  for  any  merely  sentimental  reasons;  but  I  am 
sure,  as  things  are,  I  believe  one  may  have  a  great 
many  trials  even  if  one  remains  single,  and  though 
I  know,  of  course,  that  I've  had  my  share  of  trouble, 
still  I  never  blamed  your  poor  father  one  instant 
— not   even  for  the  loss  of  my  six   children,  which 


BETWEEN  DEVIL  AND  DEEP  SEA      201 

certainly  would  not  have  happened  if  I  had  not 
married  him.  But,  as  I've  often  told  you,  my  dear, 
I  think  marriage  should  be  rightly  regarded  more  as 
a  duty  than  as  a  pleasure.  Your  Aunt  Susannah 
always  said  it  was  like  choosing  a  partner  at  a  ball; 
for  my  part,  I  think  it  resembles  more  the  selecting 
of  a  brand  of  flour." 

"And  to  think  that  she  once  cried  herself  sick 
because  Christopher  went  hunting  during  the  honey- 
moon ! "  exclaimed  Tucker,  with  his  pleasant  laugh. 

"Ah,  life  is  long,  and  one's  honeymoon  is  only  a 
month,  brother,"  retorted  the  old  lady;  "and  I'm 
not  saying  anything  against  love,  you  know,  when 
it  comes  to  that.  Properly  conducted,  it  is  a  very 
pleasant  form  of  entertainment.  I've  enjoyed  it 
mightily  myself;  but  I'm  nearing  seventy,  and  the 
years  of  love  seem  very  small  when  I  look  back. 
There  are  many  interesting  things  in  a  long  life,  and 
love  for  a  man  is  only  one  among  them ;  which  brings 
me,  after  all,  to  the  conclusion  that  the  substance 
of  anybody's  house  is  a  large  price  to  pay  for  a  single 
feeling. " 

Christopher  leaned  over  her  and  held  out  his  arms. 

"It  is  your  bedtime,  mother— shall  I  carry  you 
across?"  he  asked;  and  as  the  old  lady  nodded,  he 
lifted  her  as  if  she  were  a  child  and  held  her  closely 
against  his  breast,  feeling  his  tenderness  revive  at 
the  clasp  of  her  fragile  hands.  When  he  placed 
her  upon  her  bed,  he  kissed  her  good-night  and  went 
up  the  narrow  staircase,  stooping  carefully  to  avoid 
the  whitewashed  ceiling  above. 

Once  in  his  room,  he  threw  off  his  coat  and  sat 
down  upon  the  side  of  his  narrow  bed,  glancing  con- 


202  THE  DELIVERANCE 

temptuously  at  his  bare  brown  arms,  which  showed 
through  the  openings  in  his  blue  shirt  sleeves.  He 
was  still  smarting  from  the  memory  of  the  sudden 
self-consciousness  he  had  felt  downstairs,  and  a 
pricking  sensitiveness  took  possession  of  him,  piercing 
like  needles  through  the  boorish  indifference  he  had 
worn.  All  at  once  he  realised  that  he  was  ashamed 
of  himself — ashamed  of  his  ignorance,  his  awkward- 
ness, his  brutality — and  with  the  shame  there  awoke 
the  slow  anger  of  a  sullen  beast.  Fate  had  driven 
him  like  a  whipped  hound  to  the  kennel,  but  he 
could  still  snarl  back  his  defiance  from  the  shadow 
of  his  obscurity.  The  strong  masculine  beauty  of 
his  face — the  beauty,  as  Cynthia  had  said,  of  the 
young  David — confronted  him  in  the  little  greenish 
mirror  above  the  bureau,  and  in  the  dull  misery  of 
the  eyes  he  read  those  higher  possibilities,  which 
even  to-day  he  could  not  regard  without  a  positive 
pang.  What  he  might  have  been  seemed  forever 
struggling  in  his  look  with  what  he  was,  like  the 
Scriptural  wrestle  between  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
and  the  brute.  The  soul,  distorted,  bruised,  defeated, 
still  lived  within  him,  and  it  was  this  that  brought 
upon  him  those  hours  of  mortal  anguish  which  he 
had  so  vainly  tried  to  drown  in  his  glass.  From 
the  mirror  his  gaze  passed  to  his  red  and  knotted 
hand,  with  its  blunted  nails,  and  the  straight  furrow 
grew  deeper  between  his  eyebrows.  He  remembered 
suddenly  that  his  earliest  ambition — the  ambition 
of  his  childhood — had  been  that  of  a  gentlemanly 
scholar  of  the  old  order.  He  had  meant  to  sit  in  a 
library  and  read  Horace,  or  to  complete  the  laborious 
translation  of  the  "Iliad"  which  his  father  had  left 


BETWEEN  DEVIL  AND  DEEP  SEA      203 

unfinished.  Then  his  studies  had  ended  abruptly 
with  the  Greek  alphabet,  and  from  the  library  he 
had  passed  out  to  the  plough.  In  the  years  of  severe 
physical  labour  which  followed  he  had  felt  the  spirit 
of  the  student  go  out  of  him  forever,  and  after  a  few 
winter  nights,  when  he  fell  asleep  over  his  books, 
he  had  sunk  slowly  to  the  level  of  the  small  tobacco 
growers  among  whom  he  lived.  With  him  also 
was  the  curse  of  apathy — that  hereditary  instinct 
to  let  the  single  throw  decide  the  issue,  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  reckless  Blakes.  For  more  than  two 
hundred  years  his  people  had  been  gay  and  careless 
livers  on  this  very  soil;  among  them  all  he  knew  of 
not  one  who  had  gone  without  the  smallest  of  his 
desires,  nor  of  one  who  had  permitted  his  left  hand 
to  learn  what  his  right  one  cast  away.  Big,  blithe, 
mettlesome,  they  passed  before  him  in  a  long,  comely 
line,  flushed,  with  the  pleasant  follies  which  had 
helped  to  sap  the  courage  in  their  descendants'  veins. 
At  first  he  had  made  a  pitiable  attempt  to  remain 
"within  his  class,"  but  gradually,  as  time  went  on, 
this,  too,  had  left  him,  and  in  the  end  he  had  grown 
to  feel  a  certain  pride  in  the  ignorance  he  had  for- 
merly despised — a  clownish  scorn  of  anything  above 
the  rustic  details  of  his  daily  life.  There  were  days 
even  when  he  took  a  positive  pleasure  in  the  degree 
of  his  abasement,  when  but  for  his  blind  mother 
he  would  have  gone  dirty,  spoken  in  dialect,  and 
eaten  with  the  hounds.  What  he  dreaded  most 
now  were  the  rare  moments  of  illumination  in  which 
he  beheld  his  degradation  by  a  blaze  of  light — 
moments  such  as  this  when  he  seemed  to  stand  alone 
upon  the  edge  of  the  world,  with  the  devil  awaiting 


204  THE  DELIVERANCE 

him  when  he  should  turn  at  last.  Years  ago  he  had 
escaped  these  periods  by  strong  physical  exertion, 
working  sometimes  in  the  fields  until  he  dropped 
upon  the  earth  and  lay  like  a  log  for  hours.  Later, 
he  had  yielded  to  drink  when  the  darkness  closed 
over  him,  and  upon  several  occasions  he  had  sat 
all  night  with  a  bottle  of  whisky  in  Tom  Spade's 
store.  Both  methods  he  felt  now  to  be  ineffectual; 
fatigue  could  not  deaden  nor  could  whisky  drown 
the  bitterness  of  his  soul.  One  thing  remained, 
and  that  was  to  glut  his  hatred  until  it  should  lie 
quiet  like  a  gorged  beast. 

Steps  sounded  all  at  once  upon  the  staircase,  and 
after  a  moment  the  door  opened  and  Cynthia  entered. 

"Did  you  see  Fletcher's  boy,  Christopher?"  she 
asked.  "His  grandfather  was  over  here  looking  for 
him. " 

"  Fletcher  over  here  ?     Well,  of  all  the  impudence  ! " 

"  He  was  very  uneasy,  but  he  stopped  long  enough 
to  ask  me  to  persuade  you  to  part  with  the  farm. 
He'd  give  three  thousand  dollars  down  for  it,  he  said.  " 

She  dusted  the  bureau  abstractedly  with  her 
checked  apron  and  then  stood  looking  wistfully  into 
the    mirror. 

"Is  that  so?  If  he'd  give  me  three  million  I 
wouldn't  take  it,"   answered  Christopher. 

"It  seems  a  mistake,  dear,"  said  Cynthia  softly; 
"of  course,  I'd  hate  to  oblige  Fletcher,  too,  but  we 
are  so  poor,  and  the  money  would  mean  so  much 
to  us.  I  used  to  feel  as  you  do,  but  somehow  I  seem 
all  worn  out  now — soul  as  well  as  body.  I  haven't 
the  strength  left  to  hate." 

"Well,    I    have,"    returned    Christopher    shortly, 


BETWEEN  DEVIL  AND  DEEP  SEA      205 

"and  I'll  have  it  when  I'm  gasping  over  my  last 
breath.  You  needn't  bother  about  that  business, 
Cynthia ;  I  can  keep  up  the  family  record  on  my  own 
account.  What's  the  proverb  about  us — 'a  Blake 
can  hate  twice  as  long  as  most  men  can  love' — that's 
my  way,  you  know." 

"You  didn't  finish  it,"  said  Cynthia,  turning 
from  the  bureau;  "it's  all  downstairs  in  the  'Life  of 
Bolivar  Blake';  you  remember  Colonel  Byrd  got  it 
off  in  a  toast  at  a  wedding  breakfast,  and  Great- 
grandfather Bolivar  was  so  proud  of  it  he  had  it 
carved  above  his  library  door." 

"High  and  mighty  old  chap,  wasn't  he?  But 
what's  the  rest  ?" 

"What  he  really  said  was:  'A  Blake  can  hate 
twice  as  long  as  most  men  can  love,  and  love  twice 
as  long  as  most  men  can  live.'" 

Christopher  looked  down  suddenly  at  his  great 
bronzed  hands.  "Oh,  he  needn't  have  stuck  the 
tail  of  it  on,"  he  remarked  carelessly;  "but  the  first 
part  has  a  bully  sound." 

When  Cynthia  had  gone,  he  undressed  and  threw 
himself  on  the  bed,  but  there  was  a  queer  stinging 
sensation  in  his  veins,  and  he  could  not  sleep.  Rising 
presently,  he  opened  the  window,  and  in  the  frosty 
October  air  stood  looking  through  the  darkness  to 
the  light  that  twinkled  in  the  direction  of  Blake 
Hall.  Faint  stars  were  shining  overhead,  and 
against  the  indistinct  horizon  something  obscure 
and  black  was  dimly  outlined — perhaps  the  great 
clump  of  oaks  that  surrounded  the  old  brick  walls. 
Somewhere  by  that  glimmer  of  light  he  knew  that 
Fletcher    sat    hugging    his    ambition    like    a    miser, 


206  THE  DELIVERANCE 

gloating  over  the  grandson  who  would  grow  up  to 
redeem  his  name.  For  the  weak,  foolish-mouthed 
boy  Christopher  at  this  moment  knew  neither 
tolerance  nor  compassion;  and  if  he  stooped  to  touch 
him,  he  felt  that  it  was  merely  as  he  would  grasp  a 
stick  which  Fletcher  had  taken  for  his  own  defense. 
The  boy  himself  might  live  or  die,  prosper  or  fail, 
it  made  little  difference.  The  main  thing  was  that 
in  the  end  Bill  Fletcher  should  be  hated  by  his 
grandson  as  he  was  hated  by  the  man  whom  he 
had  wronged. 


CHAPTER   IX 

As    the   Twig    Is    Bent 

It  was  two  weeks  after  this  that  Fletcher,  looking 
up  from  his  coffee  and  cakes  one  morning,  demanded 
querulously : 

"Whar's  Will,  Saidie?  It  seems  to  me  he  sleeps 
late  these  days. " 

"Oh,  he  was  up  hours  ago,"  responded  Miss 
Saidie,  from  behind  the  florid  silver  service.  "I 
believe  he  has  gone  rabbit  hunting  with  that  young 
Blake." 

Fletcher  laid  down  his  knife  and  fork  and  glowered 
suspiciously  upon  his  sister,  the  syrup  from  his  last 
mouthful  hanging  in  drops  on  his  coarse  gray  beard. 

"With  young  Blake!  Why,  what's  the  meaning 
of  that?"  he  inquired. 

"It's  only  that  Will's  taken  to  him,  I  think. 
Thar's  no  harm  in  this  hunting  rabbits  that  I  can 
see,  and  it  keeps  the  child  out  of  doors,  anyway. 
Fresh  air  is  what  the  doctor  said  he  needed,  you 
know. " 

"  I  don't  like  it ;  I  don't  like  it,  "  protested  Fletcher; 
"those  Blakes  are  as  bad  as  bulldogs,  and  they've 
been  so  as  far  back  as  I  can  remember.  The  sooner 
a  stop's  put  to  this  thing  the  better  it'll  be.  How 
long  has  it  been  going  on,  I  wonder?" 

207 


208  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"About  ten  days,  I  believe,  and  it  does  seem  to 
give  the  boy  such  an  interest.  I  can't  help  feeling 
it's  a  pity  to  break  it  up. " 

"Oh,  bother  you  and  your  feelings  !  "  was  Fletcher's 
retort.  "If  you'd  had  the  sense  you  ought  to  have 
had,  it  never  would  have  started ;  but  you've  always 
had  a  mushy  heart,  and  I  ought  to  have  allowed  for 
it,  I  reckon.  Thar 're  two  kind  of  women  in  this 
world,  the  mulish  and  the  pulish,  an'  when  it  comes 
to  a  man's  taking  his  pick  between  'em,  the  Lord 
help  him.  As  for  that  young  Blake — well,  if  I  had 
to  choose  between  him  and  the  devil,  I'd  take  up 
with  the  devil  mighty  fast,  that's  all. " 

"Oh,   Brother  Bill,   he  saved  the  child's  life!" 

"Well,  he  didn't  do  it  on  purpose;  he  told  me  so 
himself.  I  tried  to  settle  that  fair  and  square  with 
him,  you  know,  and  he  had  the  face  to  tear  my 
check  in  half  and  send  it  back.  Oh,  I  don't  like 
this  thing,  I  tell  you,  and  I  won't  have  it.  I've  no 
doubt  it's  at  the  bottom  of  all  Will's  cutting  up  about 
school,  too.  He  was  not  well  enough  to  go  yester- 
day, he  said,  and  here  he's  getting  up  this  morning 
at  daybreak  and  streaking,  heaven  knows  whar, 
with  a  beggar.  You  may  as  well  pack  his  things — 
I'll  ship  him  off  to-morrow  if  I'm  alive." 

"I  hope  you  won't  scold  him,  anyway;  he's  not 
strong,  you  know,  and  it's  good  for  him  to  have  a 
little  pleasure.  I'm  sure  I  can't  see  what  you  have 
against  the  Blakes,  as  far  as  that  goes.  I  remember 
the  old  gentleman  when  I  was  a  child — so  fine,  and 
clean,  and  pleasant,  it  was  a  sight  just  to  see  him 
ride  by  on  his  dappled  horse.  He  always  lifted 
his  hat  to  me,  too,  when  he  passed  me  in  the  road, 


AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT  209 

and  once  he  gave  me  some  peaches  for  opening  the 
red  gate  for  him.  I  never  could  help  liking  him, 
and  I  was  sorry  when  he  lost  his  money  and  they 
had  to  sell  the  Hall." 

Fletcher  choked  over  his  coffee  and  grew  purple 
in  the  face. 

"Hang  your  puling!"  he  cried  harshly.  "I'll 
not  stand  it,  do  you  hear?  The  old  man  was  a 
beggarly,  cheating  spendthrift,  and  the  young  one 
is  a  long  sight  worse.  I'd  rather  wring  Will's  neck 
than  have  him  mixed  up  with  that  batch  of  paupers.  " 

Miss  Saidie  shrunk  back,  frightened,  behind  the 
silver   service. 

"Of  course  you  know  best,  brother,"  she  hastened 
to  acknowledge,  with  her  unfailing  good-humour. 
"I'm  as  fond  of  the  child  as  you  are,  I  reckon — and 
of  Maria,  too,  for  that  matter.  Have  you  seen  this 
photograph  she  sent  me  yesterday,  taken  at  some 
outlandish  place  across  the  water  ?  I  declare,  I  had 
no  idea  she  was  half  so  handsome.  She  has  begun 
to  wear  her  hair  low  and  has  filled  out  considerable.  " 

"Well,  there  was  room  for  it, "  commented  Fletcher, 
as  he  glanced  indifferently  at  the  picture  and  laid 
it  down.  "Get  Will's  clothes  packed  to-day,  remem- 
ber.    He  starts  off  to-morrow  morning,  rain  or  shine.  " 

Pushing  back  his  chair,  he  paused  to  gulp  a  last 
swallow  of  coffee,  and  then  stamped  heavily  from 
the  room. 

At  dinner  Will  did  not  appear,  and  when  at  last 
the  supper  bell  jangled  in  the  hall  and  Fletcher 
strode  in  to  find  the  boy's  place  still  empty,  the 
shadow  upon  his  brow  grew  positively  black.  As  they 
rose  from  the  table  there  were  brisk,  light  steps  along 


2io  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  hall,  and  Will  entered  hurriedly,  warm  and 
dusty  after  the  day's  hunt.  Catching  sight  of  his 
grandfather,  he  started  nervously,  and  the  boyish 
animation  he  had  brought  in  from  the  fields  faded 
quickly  from  his  face,  which  took  on  a  sly  and 
dogged  look. 

"Whar  in  the  devil's  name  have  you  been,  suh?" 
demanded  Fletcher  bluntly. 

The  boy  hesitated,  seeking  the  inevitable  defenses 
of  the  weak  pitted  against  the  strong.  "I've  been 
teaching  my  hounds  to  hunt  rabbits,"  he  replied, 
after  a  moment.     "Zebbadee  was  with  me." 

"So  you  were  too  sick  to  start  for  school  this 
morning,  eh?"  pursued  Fletcher,  hurt  and  angry. 
"Only  well  enough  to  go  traipsing  through  the 
bushes  after  a  pack  of  brutes?" 

"I  had  a  headache,  but  it  got  better.  May  I  go 
up  now  to  wash  my  hands?" 

For  an  instant  Fletcher  regarded  him  in  a  brooding 
silence;  then,  with  that  remorseless  cruelty  which 
is  the  strangest  manifestation  of  wounded  love,  he 
loosened  upon  the  boy's  head  all  the  violence  of  his 
smothered  wrath. 

"  You'll  do  nothing  of  the  kind !  I  ain't  done 
with  you  yet,  and  when  I  am  I  reckon  you  will  know 
it.  Mark  my  words,  if  you  warn't  such  a  girlish- 
looking  chap  I'd  take  my  horsewhip  to  your  shoulders 
in  a  jiffy.  So  this  is  the  return  I  get,  is  it,  for  all  my 
trouble  with  you  since  the  day  you  were  born ! 
Tricks  and  lies  are  all  the  reward  I'm  to  expect,  I 
reckon.  Well,  you'll  learn — once  for  all,  now — that 
when  you  undertake  to  fool  me  it's  a  clear  waste 
of  time.     I've  found  out  whar  you've  been  to-day, 


AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT  211 

and  I  know  you've  been  sneaking  across  the  county 
with  that  darn  Blake  ! ' ' 

The  boy  looked  at  him  steadily,  first  with  speechless 
terror,  then  with  a  cowed  and  sullen  rage.  The  glare 
in  Fletcher's  eyes  fascinated  him,  and  he  stood 
motionless  on  his  spot  of  carpet  as  if  he  were  held 
there  in  an  invisible  vise.  Weakling  as  he  was, 
he  had  been  humoured  too  long  to  bear  the  lash 
submissively  at  last,  and  beneath  the  tumult  of 
words  that  overwhelmed  him  he  felt  his  anger  flow 
like  an  infusion  of  courage  in  his  veins.  The  greater 
share  of  love  was  still  on  his  grandfather's  side, 
and  the  knowledge  of  this  lent  a  sullen  defiance  to 
his  voice. 

"You  bluster  so  I  can't  hear,"  he  said,  blinking 
fast  to  shut  out  the  other's  eyes.  "If  I  did  go  with 
Christopher  Blake,  what's  the  harm  in  it  ?  I  only 
lied  because  you  make  such  a  fuss  it  gives  me  a 
headache. " 

"It's  the  first  fuss  I  ever  made  with  you,  I 
reckon,"  returned  Fletcher,  softening  before  the 
accusation.  "  If  I  ever  fussed  with  you  before,  sonny, 
you  may  make  mighty  certain  you  deserved  it." 

"You  frighten  me  half  to  death  when  you  rage 
so,"  persisted  the  boy,  snatching  craftily  at  his 
advantage. 

"There,  there,  we'll  get  it  over,"  said  Fletcher, 
quieting  instantly.  "I  didn't  mean  to  scare  you 
that  way,  but  the  truth  is  it  put  me  in  a  passion  to 
hear  of  you  mixing  up  with  that  scamp  Blake.  Jest 
keep  clear  of  him  and  I'll  ask  nothing  more  of  you. 
You  may  chase  all  your  rabbits  between  here  and 
kingdom  come  for  aught  I  care,  but  if  I  ever  see  you 


2i2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

alongside  of  Christopher  Blake  again,  I  tell  you,  I'll 
lick  you  until  you're  black  and  blue.  And  now 
hurry  up  and  git  your  supper  and  go  to  bed,  for  you 
start  to  school  to-morrow  morning  at  sunrise." 

Will  flushed,  and  stood  blinking  his  eyes  in  the 
lamplight. 

"I  don't  want  to  go  to  school,  grandpa,"  he  said 
persuasively. 

"That's  a  pity,  sonny,  because  you've  got  to  go 
whether  you  like  it  or  not.  Your  Aunt  Saidie  has 
gone  and  packed  your  things,  and  I'll  give  you  a 
month's  pocket  money  to  start  with." 

"But  I'd  rather  stay  at  home  and  study  with  Mr. 
Morrison.  Then  I  could  follow  after  the  hounds 
in  the  afternoon  and  keep  out  in  the  fresh  air,  as 
the  doctor  said  I  must." 

"Now,  now,  we've  had  enough  of  this,"  said 
Fletcher  decisively.  "You'll  do  what  I  say,  mind 
you,  and  you'll  do  it  quick.  No  haggling  over  it, 
do  you  hear?" 

Will  looked  at  him  sullenly,  nerved  by  that  reckless 
anger  which  so  often  passes  for  pure  daring. 

"If  you  make  me  go  you'll  be  sorry,  grandpa," 
he  said,  choking. 

Fletcher  swallowed  an  uneasy  laugh,  strangled  over 
it,  and  finally    spat  it  out   with  a  wad    of   tobacco. 

"Why,  what  blamed  maggot  have  you  got  in  your 
head,  son?"  he  inquired,  laying  his  heavy  hand  on 
the  boy's  shoulder.  "You  didn't  use  to  hate 
school  so,  and,  as  sure  as  you're  born,' you'll  find  it 
first  rate  sport  when  you  get  back.  It's  this  Blake 
business,  that's  what  it  is — he's  gone  and  stuffed 
you    plum   full    of   notions.     Look    here,    now,    you 


AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT  213 

don't  want  to  grow  up  to  be  a  dunce  like  him,  do 
you  ? ' ' 

He  had  touched  the  raw  at  last,  and  Will  broke 
out  passionately  in  revolt,  inflamed  by  a  boyish 
admiration  for  his  own  bravado. 

"He's  got  a  lot  more  sense  than  anybody  about 
here, "  he  cried,  backing  against  the  door  and  holding 
tightly  to  the  handle;  "and  if  he  doesn't  know  that 
plaguey  Greek  it's  because  he  says  there  isn't  any 
use  in  it.  Why,  he  can  shoot  a  bird  on  the  wing 
over  his  shoulder,  and  mount  a  horse  at  full  gallop, 
and  tell  stories  that  make  you  creep  all  over.  He's 
not  a  dunce,  grandpa;  he's  my  friend,  and. I  like  him  ! " 

The  last  words  came  in  a  sudden  spurt,  for,  feeling 
his  artificial  courage  ooze  out  of  him,  the  boy  had 
started  in  a  run  from  the  room.  He  had  barely 
crossed  the  threshold,  however,  when  Fletcher 
reached  out  with  a  strong  grip  and  pulled  him  back, 
swinging  him  slowly  round  until  the  two  stood  face 
to  face. 

"Now,  here's  one  thing  flat,"  said  the  man  in  a 
husky  voice,  "if  I  ever  see  or  hear  of  you  opening 
your  mouth  to  that  rascal  again,  I'll  thrash  you 
until  you  haven't  a  sound  bone  in  your  body.  You'd 
better  go  up  now  and  say  your  prayers." 

As  he  released  his  grasp,  the  boy  struck  out  at 
him  with  a  nerveless  gesture  and  then  shot  like  an 
arrpw  through  the  hall  and  out  into  the  twilight. 
At  the  moment  his  terror  of  Fletcher  was  forgotten 
in  the  paroxysm  of  his  anger.  Short  sobs  broke  from 
him  as  he  ran,  and  presently  his  breath  came  in 
pants  like  those  of  an  overdriven  horse;  but  still, 
without  slackening  his  pace,  he  sped  on  to  the  old 


2i4  THE  DELIVERANCE 

ice-pond  and  then  wheeled  past  the  turning  into  the 
sunken  road.  Not  until  he  had  reached  the  long 
gate  before  the  Blake  cottage  did  he  stop  short 
suddenly  and  stand,  grasping  his  moist  shirt  collar, 
in  an  effort  to  quiet  his  convulsed  breathing. 

The  hounds  greeted  him  with  a  single  bay,  and 
at  the  noise  Cynthia  came  out  upon  the  porch  and 
then  down  into  the  gravelled  path  between  the  old 
rose-bushes. 

"What  do  you  wish?"  she  demanded  stiffly, 
standing  severe  and  erect  in  her  faded  silk. 

"I  must  speak  to  Christopher — I  must!"  gasped 
the  boy,  breathing  hard.  "I  am  going  away  to- 
morrow, and  this  is  my  last  chance." 

"Well,  he's  in  the  stable,  I  believe,"  replied 
Cynthia  coolly.  "If  you  want  him,  you  must  go 
there  to  look  for  him,  and  be  sure  not  to  make  a 
noise  when  you  pass  the  house. "  Then,  as  he  darted 
away,  her  eyes  followed  him  with  a  weary  aversion. 

Will  passed  the  kitchen  and  the  woodpile  and, 
turning  into  a  little  path  that  led  from  the  well,  came 
to  the  open  door  of  the  rudely  built  stable.  A  dim 
light  fell  in  a  square  across  the  threshold,  and  looking 
inside  he  saw  that  a  lantern  was  hanging  from  a 
nail  above  the  nearest  stall  and  that  within  the 
circle  of  its  illumination  Christopher  was  busily 
currying  the  old  gray  mare. 

At  the  boy's  entrance  he  paused  for  an  instant, 
glanced  carelessly  over  the  side,  of  the  stall,  and 
then  went  on  with  his  work. 

"  Playing  night-owl,  eh  ? "  he  remarked  indifferently. 
"There's  no  rubbing-down  for  you  to  do,  I  reckon." 

"There's  a  darn  sight  worse,"  returned  the   boy, 


AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT  215 

throwing  out  the  oath  with  a  conscious  swagger  as 
he  braced  himself  against  the  ladder  that  ran  up  to 
the  loft. 

His  tone  arrested  Christopher's  hand,  and,  lifting 
his  head,  the  young  man  stood  attentively  regarding 
him,  one  arm  lying  upon  the  broad  back  of  the  old 
mare. 

"Why,  what's  up  now?"  he  questioned  with  a 
smile.  Some  fine  chaff,  which  he  had  brought  down 
from  the  loft,  still  clung  to  his  hair  and  clothes  and 
darkened  his  upper  lip  like  a  mustache. 

"Grandpa's  found  it  out  and  he's  hopping,"  said 
the  boy.  "I  always  told  you  he  would  be,  you 
know,  and  now  it's  come.  If  he  ever  catches  me 
with  you  again  he  swears  he'll  give  it  to  me  like  hell.  " 
He  pressed  tightly  against  the  ladder  and  wagged 
his  head  defiantly.  "But  he  needn't  think  he  can 
bully  me  like  that — not  if  I  know  it !" 

"Well,  he  mustn't  catch  you  again,"  returned 
Christopher,  not  troubling  to  soften  his  scorn  of  such 
cheap  heroics;  "we  must  manage  better  next  time. 
Did  you  think  to  remind  him,  by  the  way,  that  I 
once  took  the  trouble  to  save  your  life?" 

"That's  a  fact,  I  didn't  think  of  it.  What  would 
he  have  said,  I  wonder?" 

Christopher  raised  his  eyebrows.  "Knocked  your 
front  teeth  out,  perhaps.     He's  like  that,  isn't  he?" 

"Oh,  he's  awfully  fond  of  me,  you  know,"  pro- 
tested the  boy;  "but  it's  his  meddling  ways  that  I 
can't  stand.  What  business  is  it  of  his  who  my 
friends  are  ?  He  hasn't  got  to  take  up  with  'em,  has 
he  ?  Why,  what  he  hates  is  for  me  to  want  to  be 
with   anybody  but   himself   or   Aunt   Saidie.     He'd 


216  THE  DELIVERANCE 

like  to  keep  me  dangling  all  day  to  his  coat  tails, 
but  it's  not  fair,  and  I  won't  have  it.  I'll  show  him 
whether  I'm  to  be  kept  a  kid  forever  or  not !" 

"There's  spirit  for  you!"  drawled  Christopher 
with  a  laugh,  as  he  applied  the  currycomb  to  the 
mare's  flank. 

"You  just  wait  till  you  hear  the  worst,"  returned 
the  other,  with  evident  pride  in  the  thunderbolt 
about  to  be  delivered.  "He  swears  he's  going  to 
send  me  to  school  to-morrow  at  sunrise." 

"You  don't  say  so?"  ejaculated  Christopher. 

"Oh,  but  he'll  do  it,  too — the  only  way  to  get 
around  him  is  to  fall  ill,  and  I  can't  work  that  to- 
morrow. I  played  the  trick  last  week  and  he  saw 
through  it.  I've  got  to  go,  that's  certain;  but  I'm  going 
to  make  him  sorry  enough  before  he's  done.  Why 
couldn't  he  let  me  keep  on  studying  with  Mr.  Morrison, 
as  the  doctor  said  I  ought  to?  What's  the  use  of 
this  blamed  old  Latin  and  Greek,  anyway  ?  Nobody 
about  here  knows  them,  and  why  should  I  set  myself 
up  for  a  precious  numbskull  of  a  scholar?  I'd  rather 
be  a  crack  shot  like  you  any  day  !  I  tell  you  one 
thing,"  he  finished,  sucking  in  his  foreath  in  a  way 
that  had  annoyed  Christopher  from  the  first,  "I've 
half  a  mind  to  run  away  or  fall  ill  after  I  get  there  !" 

Christopher  turned  suddenly,  slapped  the  mare 
on  the  flank,  and  came  out  of  the  stall,  the  curry- 
comb still  in  his  hand.  His  shirt  sleeves  were  rolled 
above  his  elbows,  and  the  muscles  of  his  arms  stood 
out  like  cords  under  the  sunburned  skin,  which 
showed  a  paler  bronze  from  the  wrists  up.  He  was 
flushed  from  leaning  over,  and  his  clothes  smelled 
strongly  of  the  stable. 


AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT  217 

"If  you  do,  come  to  me,"  he  said  lightly,  "and 
I'll  hide  you  in  the  barn  till  the  storm  blows  over. 
It  wouldn't  last  long,  I  reckon." 

"  Bless  you,  no;  when  he's  scared  I  can  do  anything 
with  him.  Why,  he  was  as  soft  as  mush  after  the 
horses  ran  away  with  me,  though  he'd  threatened 
to  thrash  me  if  I  touched  the  reins.  Oh,  I  say  it's 
a  shame  we  never  had  that   'possum  hunt!" 

Christopher  turned  down  his  shirt  sleeves  and 
brushed  the  chaff  from  his  face. 

"What  do  you  say  about  to-night?"  he  inquired, 
with  something  like  a  sneer.  "We  couldn't  go  far, 
of  course,  and  we'd  have  to  borrow  Tom  Spade's 
hounds — mine  are  tired  out — but  we  might  have  a 
short  run  about  midnight,  get  a  'possum  or  so,  and 
be  in  our  beds  before  daybreak.     Shall  we  try  it?" 

The  boy  wavered,  struggling  between  his  desire 
for  the  chase  and  his  fear  of  Fletcher. 

"  Of  course,  if  you're  afraid "  added  Christopher 

slowly. 

"I'm  not  afraid,"  broke  out  Will  angrily.  "I'm 
not  afraid  and  you  know  it.  You  be  at  the  store 
by  eleven,  and  I'll  get  out  of  the  window  and  join 
you.  Grandpa  will  never  know,  and  if  he  does — 
well,   I'll  settle  him!" 

"Then  be  quick  about  it,"  was  Christopher's 
retort,  and  as  the  boy  ran  out  into  the  darkness 
he  followed  him  to  the  door  and  stood  gazing  moodily 
down  upon  the  yellow  circle  that  his  lantern  cast 
on  the  bare  ground.  A  massive  fatigue  oppressed 
him,  and  his  hands  and  feet  had  become  like  leaden 
weights.  There  was  a  heaviness,  too,  about  his 
head,  and  his  eyeballs  burned  as  if  he  had  looked 


2i8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

too  long  at  a  bright  light.  At  the  moment  he  felt 
like  a  man  who,  being  bound  upon  a  wheel,  is  whirled 
so  rapidly  around  that  he  is  dazed  by  the  continuous 
revolutions.  What  did  it  all  mean,  anyway — the 
boy,  Fletcher,  himself,  and  the  revenge  which  he 
now  saw  so  clearly  before  him?  Was  it  a  great 
divine  judgment  or  a  great  human  cruelty? 

Question  as  he  would,  the  wheel  still  turned,  and 
he  knew  that  for  good  or  evil  he  was  bound  upon 
it  until  the  end. 


CHAPTER   X 

Powers  of  Darkness 

October  dragged  slowly  along,  and  Christopher 
followed  his  work  upon  the  farm  with  the  gloomy 
indifference  which  had  become  the  settled  expression 
of  his  attitude  toward  life.  Since  the  morning 
when  he  had  seen  Will  drive  by  to  the  cross-roads 
he  had  heard  nothing  of  him,  and  gradually,  as  the 
weeks  went  on,  that  last  reckless  night  behind  the 
hounds  had  ceased  to  represent  a  cause  either  of 
rejoicing  or  of  regret.  He  had  not  meant  to  goad 
the  boy  into  drinking — of  this  he  was  quite  sure — 
and  yet  when  the  hunt  was  over  and  the  two  stood 
just  before  dawn  in  Tom  Spade's  room  he  had 
felt  the  devil  enter  into  him  and  take  possession. 
The  old  mad  humour  of  his  blood  ran  high,  and 
as  the  raw  whisky  fired  his  imagination  he  was 
dimly  conscious  that  his  talk  grew  wilder  and  that 
the  surrounding  objects  swam  before  his  gaze  as  if 
seen  through  a  fog.  Life,  for  the  time  at  least, 
lost  its  relative  values;  the  moment  loomed  larger 
in  his  vision  than  the  years,  and  he  beheld  the  past 
and  the  future  dwarfed  by  the  single  radiant  instant 
that  was  his  own.  It  was  as  if  he  could  pay  back 
the  score  of  a  lifetime  in  that  one  minute. 

"Is  it  possible  that  what  was  so  difficult  yesterday 
219 


220  THE  DELIVERANCE 

should  have  grown  so  easy  to-day  ? "  he  asked  himself, 
astonished.  "Why  have  I  never  seen  so  clearly 
before?  Why,  until  this  evening,  have  I  gone  puling 
about  my  life  as  if  such  things  as  disgrace  and 
poverty  were  sufficient  to  crush  the  strength  out  of 
a  man  ?  Let  me  put  forth  all  my  courage  and  nothing 
is  impossible — not  even  the  attainment  of  success 
nor  the  punishment  of  Fletcher.  It  is  only  necessary 
to  begin  at  once — to  hasten  about  one's  task — and 
in  a  few  short  years  it  will  be  accomplished  and  done 
with.  All  will  be  as  I  wish,  and  I  shall  then  be  as 
happy  as  Tucker." 

Following  this  came  the  questions,  How?  When? 
Where  shall  I  begin  ? — but  he  put  them  angrily  aside 
and  refilled  his  glass.  A  great  good-humour  pos- 
sessed him,  and,  as  he  drank,  all  the  unpleasant 
things  of  life — loss,  unrest,  heavy  labour — vanished 
in  the  roseate  glow  that  pervaded  his  thoughts. 

What  came  of  it  was  not  quite  clear  to  him  next 
day,  and  this  caused  the  uneasiness  that  lasted  for 
a  week.  He  had  a  vague  recollection  that  Tom 
Spade  took  the  boy  home  and  rolled  him  through 
the  window,  and  that  he  himself  went  whistling  to 
his  bed  with  the  glorious  sensation  that  he  was 
riding  the  crest  of  a  big  wave.  With  the  morning 
came  a  severe  headache  and  the  ineffectual  effort 
to  remember  just  how  far  it  had  all  gone,  and  then  a 
sharp  anxiety,  which  vanished  when  he  saw  Will  pass 
on  his  way  to  school. 

"The  boy  was  none  the  worse  for  it,"  Tom  Spade 
told  him  later;  "he  had  a  drop  too  much,  to  be  sure, 
but  his  legs  were  as  steady  as  mine,  an'  he  slept  it 
off  in  an  hour.     He's  a  ticklish  chap,  Mr.  Christopher," 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  221 

the  storekeeper  added  after  a  moment,  "an'  I'd 
keep  my  hands  from  meddlin'  with  him,  if  I  was 
you.  That  thing  shan't  happen  agin  at  my  place, 
an'  it  wouldn't  have  happened  then  if  I'd  been 
around  at  the  beginnin'.  You  may  tamper  with  yo' 
own  salvation  as  much  as  you  please — that's  my 
gospel,  but  I'll  be  hanged  if  you've  got  a  right  to 
tamper  with  anybody  else's." 

Christopher  wheeled  suddenly  about  and  gave 
him  a  keen  glance  from  under  his  lowered  eyelids. 
For  the  first  time  he  detected  a  lack  of  deference  in 
Tom  Spade's  tone,  and  a  suspicion  shot  through 
him  that  the  words  were  meant  to  veil  a  reprimand. 

"Well,  I  reckon  the  boy's  got  as  good  a  right  to 
drink  as  I  have,"  he  retorted  sneeringly,  and  a 
moment  afterward  went  gaily  whistling  through 
the  store.  At  the  time  he  felt  a  certain  pleasure 
in  defying  Tom's  opinion — in  setting  himself  so 
boldly  in  opposition  to  the  conventional  morality 
of  his  neighbours.  The  situation  gave  him  several 
sharp  breaths  and  that  dizzy  sense  of  insecurity 
in  which  his  mood  delighted.  It  had  needed  only 
the  shade  of  disapproval  expressed  in  the  store- 
keeper's voice  to  lend  a  wonderful  piquancy  to  his 
enjoyment — to  cause  him  to  toy  in  imagination 
with  his  hatred  as  a  man  does  with  his  desire.  Before 
Tom  spoke  he  had  caught  himself  almost  regretting 
the  affair — wondering,  even,  if  his  error  were  past 
retrieving — but  with  the  first  mere  suggestion  of 
outside  criticism  his  humour  underwent  a  startling 
change. 

Between  Fletcher  and  himself  the  account  was 
still  open,  and  the  way  in  which  he  meant  to  settle 


222  THE  DELIVERANCE 

it  concerned  himself  alone — least  of  all  did  it  concern 
Tom  Spade. 

He  was  groping  confusedly  among  these  reflec- 
tions when,  one  evening  in  early  November,  he  went 
upstairs  after  a  hasty  supper  to  find  Cynthia  already 
awaiting  him  in  his  room.  At  his  start  of  displeased 
surprise  she  came  timidly  forward  and  touched 
his  arm. 

"Are  you  sick,  Christopher?  or  has  anything 
happened?     You  are  so  unlike  yourself." 

He  shook  his  head  impatiently  and  her  hand  fell 
from  his  sleeve.  It  occurred  to  him  all  at  once, 
with  an  aggrieved  irritation,  that  of  late  his  family 
had  failed  him  in  sympathy — that  they  had  ceased 
to  value  the  daily  sacrifices  he  made.  Almost 
with  horror  he  found  himself  asking  the  next  instant 
whether  the  simple  bond  of  blood  was  worth  all 
that  he  had  given — worth  his  youth,  his  manhood, 
his  ambition?  Until  this  moment  his  course  had 
seemed  to  him  the  one  inevitable  outcome  of  circum- 
stances— the  one  appointed  path  for  him  to  tread; 
but  even  as  he  put  the  question  he  saw  in  a  sudden 
illumination  that  there  might  have  been  another 
way — that  with  the  burden  of  the  three  women 
removed  he  might  have  struck  out  into  the  world 
and  at  least  have  kept  his  own  head  above  water. 
With  his  next  breath  the  horror  of  his  thought  held 
him  speechless,  and  he  turned  away  lest  Cynthia 
should  read  his  degradation  in  his  eyes. 

"  Happened  !  Why,  what  should  have  happened  ? " 
he  inquired  with  attempted  lightness.  "Good  Lord  ! 
After  a  day's  work  like  mine  you  can  hardly  expect 
me  to  dance  a  hornpipe.     Since  sunrise  I've  done 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  223 

a  turn  at  fall  ploughing,  felled  and  chopped  a  tree, 
mended  the  pasture  fence,  brought  the  water  for 
the  washing,  tied  up  some  tobacco  leaves,  and  looked 
after  the  cattle  and  the  horses — and  now  you  find 
fault  because   I   haven't   cut   any  extra  capers!" 

"Not  find  fault,  dear,"  she  answered,  and  the 
hopeless  courage  in  her  face  smote  him  to  the  heart. 
In  a  bitter  revulsion  of  feeling  he  felt  that  he  could 
not  endure  her  suffering  tenderness. 

' '  Find  fault  with  you  !  Oh,  Christopher  !  It  is 
only  that  you  have  been  so  different  of  late,  so 
brooding,  and  you  seem  to  avoid  us  at  every  instant. 
Even  mother  has  noticed  it,  and  she  imagines  that 
you  are  in  love." 

"In  love!"  he  threw  back  his  head  with  a  loud 
laugh.  "Oh,  I'm  tired,  Cynthia — dog-tired,  that's 
the  matter." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  replied  Cynthia,  rubbing  her 
eyes  hard  with  the  back  of  her  hand.  "And  the 
worst  is  that  there's  no  help  for  it — absolutely  none. 
I  think  about  it  sometimes  until  I  wonder  that  I 
don't  go  mad." 

He  turned  at  this  from  the  window  through  which 
he  had  been  gazing  and  fixed  upon  her  a  perplexed 
and  moody  stare.  The  wistful  patience  in  her  face, 
like  the  look  he  had  seen  in  the  eyes  of  overworked 
farm  animals,  aroused  in  him  a  desire  to  prod  her 
into  actual  revolt— into  any  decisive  rebellion  against 
fate.  To  accept  life  upon  its  own  terms  seemed  to 
him,  at  the  instant,  pure  cowardliness — the  enforced 
submission  of  a  weakened  will;  and  he  questioned 
almost  angrily  if  the  hereditary  instincts  were  alive 
in  her  also?     Did  she,  too,  have  her  secret  battles 


224  THE  DELIVERANCE 

and  her  silent  capitulations?  Or  was  her  pious 
resignation,  after  all,  only  a  new  form  of  the  old 
Blake  malady — of  that  fatal  apathy  which  seized 
them,  like  disease,  when  events  demanded  strenuous 
endeavour?  Could  the  saintly  fortitude  he  had  once 
so  envied  be,  when  all  was  said,  merely  the  outward 
expression  of  the  inertia  he  himself  had  felt — of 
the  impulse  to  drift  with  the  tide,  let  it  carry  one 
where  it   would  ? 

"Well,  I'm  glad  it's  no  worse,"  said  Cynthia, 
with  a  sigh  of  relief,  as  she  turned  toward  the  door. 
"Since  you  are  not  sick,  dear,  things  are  not  so  bad 
as  they  might  be.  I'll  let  mother  fancy  you  have 
what  she  calls  'a  secret  sentiment.'  It  amuses  her, 
at  any  rate.  And  now  I'm  going  to  stir  up  some 
buckwheat  cakes  for  your  breakfast.  We've  got  a 
jug  of  black  molasses." 

"That's  pleasant,  at  least,"  he  returned,  laughing; 
and  then  as  she  reached  the  door  he  went  toward  her 
and  laid  his  hand  awkwardly  upon  her  shoulder. 
"  Don't  worry  about  me,  Cynthia,"  he  added;  "there's 
a  lot  of  work  left  in  me  yet,  and  a  change  for  the 
better  may  come  any  day,  you  know.  By  next 
year  the  price  of  tobacco  may  shoot   sky-high." 

Her  face  brightened  and  a  flush  smoothed  out  all 
the  fine  wrinkles  on  her  brow,  but  with  the  pathetic 
shyness  of  a  woman  who  has  never  been  caressed 
she  let  his  hand  fall  stiffly  from  her  arm  and  went 
hurriedly   from   the   room. 

For  a  few  minutes  Christopher  stood  looking 
abstractedly  at  the  closed  door.  Then  shaking  his 
head,  as  if  to  rid  himself  of  an  accusing  thought, 
he  turned  away  and  began  rapidly  to  undress.     He 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  225 

had  thrown  off  his  coat,  and  was  stooping  to  remove 
his  boots,  when  a  slight  noise  at  the  window  startled 
him,  and  straightening  himself  instantly  he  awaited 
attentively  a  repetition  of  the  sound.  In  a  moment 
it  came  again,  and  hastily  crossing  the  room  and 
raising  the  sash,  he  looked  out  into  the  full  moon- 
light and  saw  Will  Fletcher  standing  in  the  gravelled 
path  below.  At  the  first  glance  surprise  held  him 
motionless,  but  as  the  boy  waved  to  him  he  responded 
to  the  signal,  and,  catching  up  his  coat  from  the  bed, 
ran  down  the  staircase  and  out  into  the  yard. 

"What  in  the   devil's    name "  he    exclaimed, 

aghast. 

Will  was  trembling  from  exhaustion,  and  his  face 
glimmered  like  a  pallid  blotch  under  the  shadow  of 
the  aspen.  When  the  turkeys  stirred  on  an  over- 
hanging bough  above  him  he  started  nervously  and 
sucked  in  his  breath  with  a  hissing  sound.  He  was 
run  to  death;  this  Christopher  saw  at  the  first 
anxious  look. 

"Get  me  something  to  eat,"  said  the  boy;  "I'm 
half  starved — but  bring  it  to  the  barn,  for  I'm  too 
dead  tired  to  stand  a  moment.  Yes,  I  ran  away,  of 
course,"  he  finished  irritably.  "Do  I  look  as  if  I'd 
come  in  grandpa's  carriage?" 

With  a  last  spurt  of  energy  he  disappeared  into 
the  shadows  behind  the  house,  and  Christopher, 
going  into  the  kitchen,  began  searching  the  tin  safe 
for  the  chance  remains  of  supper.  On  the  table  was 
the  bowl  of  buckwheat  which  Cynthia  had  been 
preparing  when  she  was  called  away  by  some  imperious 
demand  of  her  mother's,  and  near  it  he  saw  the 
open  prayer-book  from  which  she  had  been  reading. 


226  THE  DELIVERANCE 

From  the  adjoining  room  he  heard  Tucker's  voice 
— those  rich,  pleasant  tones  that  translated  into  sound 
the  courageous  manliness  of  the  old  soldier's  face — 
and  for  an  instant  he  yearned  toward  the  cheerful 
group  sitting  in  the  firelight  beyond  the  whitewashed 
wall — toward  the  blind  woman  in  her  old  oak  chair, 
listening  to  the  evening  chapter  from  the  Scriptures. 
Then  the  feeling  passed  as  quickly  as  it  had  come, 
and  securing  a  plate  of  bread  and  a  dried  ham-bone, 
he  filled  a  glass  with  fresh  milk,  and,  picking  up  his 
lantern,  went  out  of  doors  and  along  the  little 
straggling  path  to  the  barn. 

The  yard  was  frosted  over  with  moonlight,  but 
when  he  reached  the  rude  building  where  the  farm 
implements  and  cattle  fodder  were  sheltered  he  saw 
that  it  was  quite  dark  inside,  only  a  few  scattered 
moonbeams  crawling  through  the  narrow  doorway. 
To  his  first  call  there  was  no  answer,  and  it  was 
only  after  he  had  lighted  his  lantern  and  swung  it 
round  in  the  darkness  that  he  discovered  Will  lying 
fast  asleep  upon  a  pile  of  straw. 

As  the  light  struck  him  full  in  the  face  the  boy 
opened  his  eyes  and  sprang  up. 

"Why,  it's  you,"  he  said  in  a  relieved  voice. 
"I  thought  it  was  grandpa.  If  he  comes  you've 
got  to  keep  him  out,  you  know  ! " 

He  spoke  in  an  excited  whisper,  and  his  eyes 
plunged  beyond  the  entrance  with  a  look  of  pitiable 
and  abject  terror.  Once  or  twice  he  shivered  as 
if  from  cold,  and  then,  turning  away,  cowered  into 
the  pile  of  straw  in  search  of  warmth. 

For  a  time  Christopher  stood  gazing  uneasily  down 
upon  him.     "Look  here,  man,  this  can't  keep  up," 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  227 

he  said.  "You'd  better  go  straight  home,  that's 
my  opinion,  and  get  into  a  decent  bed." 

Will  started  up  again.  "I  won't  see  him!  I 
won't!"  he  cried  angrily.  "If  you  bring  him  here 
I'll  get  up  and  hide.  I  won't  see  him  !  Why,  he 
almost  killed  me  after  that  'possum  hunt  we  had, 
and  if  he  found  this  out  so  soon  he'd  kill  me  out- 
right. There  was  an  awful  rumpus  at  school.  They 
wrote  him  and  he  said  he  was  coming,  so  I  ran  away. 
It  was  all  his  fault,  too;  he  had  no  business  to  send 
me  back  again  when  he  knew  how  I  hated  it.  I  told 
him  he'd  be  sorry." 

"Well,  he  shan't  get  in  here  to-night,"  returned 
Christopher  soothingly.  "I'll  keep  him  out  with 
a  shotgun,  bless  him,  if  he  shows  his  face.  Come, 
now,  sit  up  and  eat  a  bit,  or  there  won't  be  any  fight 
left  in  us." 

Will  took  the  food  obediently,  but  before  it  touched 
his  lips  the  hand  in  which  he  held  it  dropped  limply 
to  the  straw. 

"I  can't  eat,"  he  complained,  with  a  gesture  of 
disgust.  "I'm  too  sick — I've  been  sick  for  days. 
It  was  all  grandpa's  doing,  too.  When  I  heard 
he  was  coming  I  went  out  and  got  soaking  wet,  and 
then  slept  in  my  clothes  all  night.  I  knew  he'd 
never  make  a  fuss  if  I  could  only  get  ill  enough,  but 
the  next  morning  I  felt  all  right,  so  I  came  away." 

Kneeling  upon  the  floor,  Christopher  held  the  glass 
to  his  lips,  gently  forcing  him  to  drink  a  few  swal- 
lows. Then  dipping  his  handkerchief  in  the  cattle- 
trough  outside,  he  bathed  the  boy's  face  and  hands, 
and,  loosening  his  clothes,  made  him  as  comfortable 
as  he  could.     "This  won't  do,  you  know,"  he  urged 


228  THE  DELIVERANCE 

presently,  alarmed  by  Will's  difficult  breathing. 
"You  are  in  for  a  jolly  little  spell,  and  I  must  get 
you  home.  Your  grandfather  will  never  bother  you 
while  you're  sick." 

At  the  words  the  boy  clung  to  him  deliriously, 
breaking  into  frightened  whimpers  such  as  a  child 
makes  in  the  dark.  "I  won't  go  back!  I  won't  go 
back!  "  he  repeated  wildly;  "he'll  never  believe  I'm 
ill,  and  I  won't  go  back  !  " 

"All  right;  that  settles  it.  Lie  quiet  and  I'll 
fetch  you  some  bedding  from  my  room.  Then  I'll 
fix  you  a  pallet  out  here,  and  we'll  put  up  as  best 
we  can  till  morning." 

"Don't  stay;  don't  stay,"  pleaded  Will,  as  the 
other,  leaving  his  lantern  on  the  floor,  ran  out  into 
the  moonlight. 

Returning  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he  threw  a 
small  feather-bed  down  upon  the  straw  and  settled 
the  boy  comfortably  upon  it.  Then  he  covered 
him  with  blankets,  and,  after  closing  the  door,  came 
back  and  stood  watching  for  him  to  fall  asleep.  A 
slight  draft  blew  from  the  boarded  window,  and, 
taking  off  his  coat,  he  hung  it  carefully  across  the 
cracks,  shading  the  lantern  with  his  hand  that  its 
light  might  not  flash  in  the  sleeper's  face. 

At  his  step  Will  gave  a  stifled  moan  and  looked 
up  in  terror. 

"I  thought  you'd  left  me.  Don't  go,"  he  begged, 
stretching  out  his  hand  until  it  grasped  the  other's. 
With  the  hot,  nerveless  clutch  upon  him,  Christopher 
was  conscious  of  a  quick  repulsion,  and  he  remembered 
the  sensation  he  had  felt  as  a  boy  when  he  had  once 
suddenly  brought  his  palm  down  on  a  little  green 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  229 

snake  that  was  basking  in  the  sunshine  on  an  old 
log.  Yet  he  did  not  shake  the  hand  off,  and  when 
presently  the  blanket  slipped  from  Will's  shoulders 
he  stooped  and  replaced  it  with  a  strange  gentleness. 
The  disgust  he  felt  was  so  evenly  mingled  with 
compassion  that,  as  he  stood  there,  he  could  not 
divide  the  one  emotion  from  the  other.  He  hated 
the  boy's  touch,  and  yet,  almost  in  spite  of  himself, 
he  suffered  it. 

"Well,  I'm  not  going,  so  you  needn't  let  that 
worry  you,"  he  replied.  "I'll  stretch  myself  along- 
side of  you  in  the  straw,  and  if  you  happen  to  want 
me,  just  yell  out,  you  know." 

The  weak  fingers  closed  tightly  about  his  wrist. 

"You  promise?"  asked  the  boy. 

"Oh,  I  promise,"  answered  the  other,  raising  the 
lantern  for  a  last  look  before  he  blew  it  out. 

By  early  daybreak  Will's  condition  was  still  more 
alarming,  and  leaving  him  in  a  feverish  stupor  upon 
the  pallet,  Christopher  set  out  hurriedly  shortly  after 
sunrise  to  carry  news  of  the  boy's  whereabouts  to 
Fletcher. 

It  was  a  clear,  cold  morning,  and  the  old  brick 
house,  set  midway  of  the  autumn  fields,  appeared, 
as  he  approached  it,  to  reflect  the  golden  light  that 
filled  the  east.  Never  had  the  place  seemed  to  him 
more  desirable  than  it  did  as  he  went  slowly  toward 
it  along  the  desolate  November  roads.  The  somber 
colours  of  the  landscape,  the  bared  majesty  of  the 
old  oaks  where  a  few  leaves  still  clung  to  the  topmost 
boughs,  the  deserted  garden  filled  with  wan  specters 
of  summer  flowers,  were  all  in  peculiar  harmony 
with   his   own   mood   as   with  the   stern   gray   walls 


23o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

wrapped  in  naked  creepers.  That  peculiar  sense 
of  ownership  was  strongly  with  him  as  he  ascended 
the  broad  steps  and  lifted  the  old  brass  knocker, 
which  still  bore  the  Blake  coat  of  arms. 

To  his  astonishment  the  door  opened  instantly 
and  Fletcher  himself  appeared  upon  the  threshold. 
At  sight  of  Christopher  he  fell  back  as  if  from  a 
blow  in  the  chest,  ripping  out  an  oath  with  a  big 
downward  gesture  of  his  closed  fist. 

"So  you  are  mixed  up  in  it,  are  you!  Whar's 
the  boy?  "  From  the  dusk  of  the  hall  his  face  shone 
dead  white  about  the  eyes. 

"If  you  want  to  get  anything  out  of  me  you'd 
better  curb  your  tongue,  Bill  Fletcher,"  replied 
Christopher  coolly,  feeling  an  animal  instinct  to 
prolong  the  torture.  "  If  you  think  it's  any  satisfac- 
tion to  me  to  have  your  young  idiot  thrown  on  my 
hands  you  were  never  more  mistaken  in  your  life. 
I've  been  up  half  the  night  with  him,  and  the  sooner 
you  take  him  away  the  better  I'll  like  it." 

"Oh,  you  leave  him  to  me  and  I'll  settle  him," 
responded  Fletcher,  reaching  for  his  hat.  "Jest 
show  me  whar  he  is  and  I'll  git  even  with  him  befo' 
sundown.  As  for  you,  young  man,  I'll  have  the 
sheriff  after  you  yit." 

"In  the  meantime,  you'd  better  have  the  doctor. 
The  boy's  ill,  I  tell  you.  He  came  to  me  last  evening, 
run  to  death  and  with  a  high  fever.  He  slept  in 
the  barn,  and  this  morning  he  is  decidedly  worse. 
If  you  come,  bring  Doctor  Cairn  with  you,  and  I 
warn  you  now  you've  got  to  use  a  lot  of  caution. 
Your  grandson  is  mortally  afraid  of  you,  and  he 
threatens  to  run  away  if  I  let  you  know  where  he 


POWERS  OF  DARKNESS  231 

is.  He  wants  me  to  sit  at  the  door  with  a  shotgun 
and  keep  you  off." 

He  delivered  his  blows  straight  out  from  the 
shoulder,  lingering  over  each  separate  word  that 
he   might    enjoy  to   the   full   its   stupendous   effect. 

"This  is  your  doing,"  repeated  Fletcher  hoarsely; 
"it's  your  doing,  every  blamed  bit  of  it." 

Christopher  laughed  shortly.  "Well,  I'm  through 
with  my  errand,"  he  said,  moving  toward  the  steps 
and  pausing  with  one  hand  on  a  great  white  column. 
"The  sooner  you  get  him  out  of  my  barn  the  better 
riddance  it  will  be.  There's  one  thing  certain, 
though,  and  that  is  that  you  don't  lay  eyes  on  him 
without  the  doctor.  He's  downright  ill,  on  my 
oath." 

"Oh,  it's  the  same  old  trick,  and  I  see  through 
it,"  exclaimed  Fletcher  furiously.  "It's  pure 
shamming." 

"All  the  same,  I've  got  my  gun  on  hand,  and  you 
don't  go  into  that  barn  alone."  He-  hung  for  an 
instant  upon  the  topmost  step,  then  descended 
hurriedly  and  walked  rapidly  back  along  the  broad 
white  walk.  It  would  be  an  hour,  at  least,  before 
Fletcher  could  follow  him  with  Doctor  Cairn,  and 
after  he  had  returned  to  the  barn  and  given  Will  a 
glass  of  new  milk  he  fed  and  watered  the  horses 
and  did  the  numberless  small  tasks  about  the  house. 
He  was  at  the  woodpile,  chopping  some  light  wood 
splinters  for  Cynthia,  when  the  sound  of  wheels 
reached  him,  and  in  a  little  while  more  the  head  of 
Fletcher's  mare  appeared  around  the  porch.  Doctor 
Cairn,  a  frousy,  white-bearded  old  man,  crippled 
from  rheumatism,  held  out  his  hand  to  Christopher 


232  THE  DELIVERANCE 

as  he  descended  with  some  difficulty  between  the 
wheels   of  the  buggy. 

Christopher  motioned  to  the  barn,  and  then,  taking 
the  reins,  fastened  the  horse  to  the  branch  of  a 
young  ailanthus  tree  which  grew  near  the  wood- 
pile. As  he  watched  the  figures  of  the  two  men  pass 
along  the  little  path  between  the  fringes  of  dead 
yarrow  he  drew  an  uneasy  breath  and  dug  his  boot 
into  the  rotting  mould  upon  the  ground.  The 
barn  door  opened  and  closed;  there  was  a  short 
silence,  and  then  a  sudden  despairing  cry  as  of  a 
rabbit  caught  in  the  jaws  of  a  hound.  When  he  heard 
it  he  turned  impulsively  from  the  horse's  head  and 
went  quickly  along  the  path  the  men  had  taken. 
There  was  no  definite  intention  in  his  mind,  but  as 
he  reached  the  barn  door  it  shot  open  and  Fletcher 
put  out  a  white  face. 

"The  Doctor  wants  you,  Mr.  Christopher,"  he 
cried;  "Will  has  gone  clean  mad!" 

Without  a  word,  Christopher  pushed  by  him  and 
went  into  the  great  dusky  room,  where  the  boy 
was  struggling  like  a  madman  to  loosen  the  doctor's 
grasp.  He  was  conscious  at  the  moment  that  the 
air  was  filled  with  fine  chaff  and  that  he  sucked  it 
in  when  he  breathed. 

At  his  entrance  Will  lay  quiet  for  a  moment  and 
looked    at    him    with    dazed,    questioning    eyes. 

"Keep  them  out,  Christopher!"  he  cried,  in 
anguish. 

Christopher  crossed  the  room  and  laid  his  hand 
with  a  protecting  gesture  on  the  boy's  head. 

"Why,  to  be  sure  I  will,"  he  said  heartily;  "the 
devil  himself  won't  dare  to  touch  you  when  I  am 
by." 


BOOK  III 

THE   REVENGE 


v 


THE  REVENGE 

CHAPTER   I 
In  Which  Tobacco  Is  Hero 

ON  an  October  afternoon  some  four  years  later, 
at  the  season  of  the  year  when  the  whole 
county  was  fragrant  with  the  curing  tobacco, 
Christopher  Blake  passed  along  the  stretch  of  old 
road  which  divided  his  farm  from  the  Weatherbys', 
and,  without  entering  the  porch,  called  for  Jim  from 
the  little  walk  before  the  flat  whitewashed  steps. 
In  response  to  his  voice,  Mrs.  Weatherby,  a  large, 
motherly  looking  woman,  appeared  upon  the  thresh- 
old, and  after  chatting  a  moment,  directed  him  to  the 
log  tobacco  barn,  where  the  recently  cut  crop  was 
"drying  out." 

"Jim  and  Jacob  are  both  over  thar,"  she  said; 
"an'  a  few  others,  for  the  matter  of  that,  who  have 
been  helpin'  us  press  new  cider  an'  drinkin'  the  old. 
I'm  sure  I  don't  see  why  they  want  to  lounge  out 
thar  in  all  that  smoke,  but  thar's  no '  accountin' 
for  the  taste  of  a  man  that  ever  I  heard  tell  of — 
an'  I  reckon  they  kin  fancy  pretty  easy  that  they 
are  settin'  plum  in  the  bowl  of  a  pipe.  It  beats 
me,  though,  that  it  do.  Why,  one  mouthful  of  it 
is  enough  to  start  me  coughin'  for  a  week,  an'  those 
men  thar  jest  swallow  it  down  for  pure  pleasure." 

235 


236  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Clean,  kindly,  hospitable,  she  wandered  garrulously 
on,  remembering  at  intervals  to  press  the  young 
man  to  "come  inside  an'  try  the  cakes  an'  cider." 

"No;  I'll  lookthemup  out  there,"  said  Christopher, 
resisting  the  invitation  to  enter.  "I  want  to  get  a 
pair  of  horseshoes  from  Jim;  the  gray  mare  cast 
hers  yesterday,  and  Dick  Boxley  is  laid  up  with  a 
sprained  arm.  Oh,  no,  thanks;  I  must  be  going 
back."  With  a  friendly  nod  he  turned  from  the 
steps  and  went  rapidly  along  the  path  which  led 
to  the  distant  barn. 

As  Mrs.  Weatherby  had  said,  the  place  was  like 
the  bowl  of  a  pipe,  and  it  was  a  moment  before 
Christopher  discovered  the  little  group  gathered 
about  the  doorway,  where  a  shutter  hung  loosely 
on  wooden  hinges. 

The  ancient  custom  of  curing  tobacco  with  open 
fires,  which  had  persisted  in  Virginia  since  the  days 
of  the  early  settlers,  was  still  commonly  in  use; 
and  it  is  possible  that  had  one  of  Christopher's 
colonial  ancestors  appeared  at  the  moment  in  Jacob 
Weatherby's  log  barn  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  convince  him  that  between  his  death  and  his 
resurrection  there  was  a  lapse  of  more  than  two 
hundred  years.  He  would  have  found  the  same 
square,  pen-like  structure,  built  of  straight  logs 
carefully  notched  at  the  corners;  the  same  tier-poles 
rising  at  intervals  of  three  feet  to  the  roof;  the 
same  hewn  plates  to  support  the  rafters;  the  same 
"daubing"  of  the  chinks  with  red  clay;  and  the  same 
crude  door  cut  in  the  south  wall.  From  the  roof 
the  tobacco  hung  in  a  fantastic  decoration,  shading 
from    dull    green    to    deep    bronze,    and    appearing, 


TOBACCO  IS  HERO  237 

when  viewed  from  the  ground  below,  to  resemble  a 
numberless  array  of  small  furled  flags.  On  the  hard 
earth  floor  there  were  three  parallel  rows  of  "un- 
seasoned" logs  which  burned  slowly  day  and  night, 
filling  the  barn  with  gray  smoke  and  the  pungent 
odour  of  the  curing  tobacco. 

"It  takes  a  heap  of  lookin'  arter,  an'  no  mistake," 
old  Jacob  was  remarking,  as  he  surveyed  the  fine 
crop  with  the  bland  and  easy  gaze  of  ownership. 
"Why,  in  a  little  while  them  top  leaves  thar  will  be 
like  tinder,  an'  the  first  floatin'  spark  will  set  it  all 
afire.  That's  the  way  Sol  Peterkin  lost  half  a  crop 
last  year,  an'  it's  the  way  Dick  Moss  lost  his  whole 
one  the  year  before."  At  Christopher's  entrance  he 
paused  and  turned  his  pleasant,  ruddy  face  from 
the  fresh  logs  which  he  had  been  watching.  "So 
you  want  to  have  a  look  at  my  tobaccy,  too?"  he 
added,  with  the  healthful  zest  of  a  child.  "Well, 
it's  worth  seein',  if  I  do  say  so;  thar  hasn't  been 
sech  leaves  raised  in  this  county  within  the  memory 
of  man." 

"That's  so,"  said  Christopher,  with  an  appreciative 
glance.  "  I'm  looking  for  Jim,  but  he's  keeping  up 
the  fires,  isn't  he?"  Then  he  turned  quickly,  for 
Tom  Spade,  who  with  young  Matthew  Field  had 
been  critically  weighing  the  promise  of  Jacob's  crop, 
broke  out  suddenly  into  a  boisterous  laugh. 

"Why,  I  declar',  Mr.  Christopner,  if  you  ain't 
lost  yo'  shadow!"  he  exclaimed. 

Christopher  regarded  him  blankly  for  a  moment, 
and  then  joined  lightly  in  the  general  mirth.  "Oh, 
you  mean  Will  Fletcher,"  he  returned.  "There 
was  a  pretty  girl  in  the  road  as  we  came  up,  and  I 


0 

238  THE  DELIVERANCE 

couldn't  get  him  a  step  beyond  her.  Heaven  knows 
what's  become  of  him  by  now !" 

"I  bet  my  right  hand  that  was  Molly  Peterkin," 
said  Tom.  "If  anybody  in  these  parts  begins  to 
talk  about  'a  pretty  gal,'  you  may  be  sartain  he's 
meanin'  that  yaller-headed  limb  of  Satan.  Why,  I 
stopped  my  Jinnie  goin'  with  her  a  year  ago.  Sech 
women,  I  said  to  her,  are  fit  for  nobody  but  men 
to  keep  company  with." 

"That's  so;  that's  so,"  agreed  old  Jacob,  in  a 
charitable  tone;  "seein'  as  men  have  most  likely 
made  'em  what  they  are,  an'  oughtn't  to  be  ashamed 
of  thar  own  handiwork." 

"Now,  when  it  comes  to  yaller  hair  an'  blue  eyes," 
put  in  Matthew  Field,  "she  kin  hold  her  own  agin 
any  wedded  wife  that  ever  made  a  man  regret  the 
day  of  his  birth.  Many's  the  time  of  late  I've  gone 
a  good  half-mile  to  git  out  of  that  gal's  way,  jest 
as  I  used  to  cut  round  old  Fletcher's  pasture  when 
I  was  a  boy  to  keep  from  passin'  by  his  red-heart 
cherry-tree  that  overhung  the  road.  Well,  well, 
they  do  say  that  her  young  man,  Fred  Turner, 
went  back  on  her,  an'  threw  her  on  her  father's 
hands  two  days  befo'  the  weddin'." 

"  It  was  hard  on  Sol,  now  you  come  to  think  of  it," 
said  Tom.  "He  told  me  himself  that  he  tried  to  git 
the  three  who  ought  to  marry  her  to  draw  straws  for 
the  one  who  was  to  be  the  happy  man,  but  they  all 
backed  out  an'  left  her  high  an'  dry  an'  as  pretty 
as  a  peach.  Fred  Turner  would  have  taken  his 
chance,  he  said,  like  an  honest  man,  an'  he  was 
terrible  down  in  the  mouth  when  I  saw  him,  for  he 
was  near  daft   over  the  gal." 


TOBACCO  IS  HERO  239 

"Well,  he  was  right,"  admitted  Matthew,  after 
reflection.  "Why,  the  gal  sins  so  free  an'  easy  you 
might  almost  fancy  her  a  man." 

He  drew  back,  coughing,  for  Jim  came  in  with  a 
long  green  log  and  laid  it  on  the  smouldering  fire, 
which  glowed  crimson  under  the  heavy  smoke. 

"Here's  Sol,"  said  the  young  man,  settling  the 
log  with  his  foot.  "I  told  him  you  were  on  your 
way  to  the  house,  pa,  but  he  said  he  had  only  a 
minute,  so  he  came  out  here." 

"  Oh,  I've  jest  been  to  borrow  some  Jamaica  ginger 
from  Mrs.  Weatherby,"  explained  Sol  Peterkin, 
carefully  closing  the  shutter  after  his  entrance. 
"My  wife's  took  so  bad  that  I'm  beginnin'  to  fear 
she'll  turn  out  as  po'  a  bargain  as  the  last.  It's 
my  luck — I  always  knew  I  was  ill-fated — but,  Lord 
a-mercy,  how's  a  man  goin'  to  tell  the  state  of  a 
woman's  innards  from  the  way  she  looks  on  top  ? 
All  the  huggin'  in  the  world  won't  make  her  wink 
an  eyelash,  an'  then  there'll  crop  out  heart  disease 
or  dropsy  befo'  the  year  is  up.  When  I  think  of 
the  trouble  I  had  pickin'  that  thar  woman  it  makes 
me  downright  sick.  It  ain't  much  matter  about 
the  colour  or  the  shape,  I  said — a  freckled  face 
an'  a  scrawny  waist  I  kin  stand — only  let  it  be  the 
quality  that  wears.  If  you  believe  it,  suh,  I  chose 
the  very  ugliest  I  could  find,  thinkin'  that  the  Lord 
might  be  mo'  willin'  to  overlook  her — an'  now  this 
is  what's  come  of  it.  She's  my  fourth,  too,  an'  I'll 
begin  to  be  a  joke  when  I  go  out  lookin'  for  a  fifth. 
Naw,  suh;  if  Mary  dies,  pure  shame  will  keep  me  a 
widower  to  my  death." 

"Thar  ain't  but  one  thing  sartain  about  marriage, 


24o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

in  my  mind,"  commented  Matthew  Field,  "an'  that 
is  that  it  gits  most  of  its  colour  from  the  distance 
that  comes  between.  The  more  your  mouth  waters 
for  a  woman,  the  likelier  'tis  that  'tain't  the  woman 
for  you — that's  my  way  of  thinkin'.  The  woman  a 
man  don't  git  somehow  is  always  the  woman  he  ought 
to  have  had.  It's  a  curious,  mixed-up  business, 
however  you  look  at  it." 

"That's  so,"  said  Tom  Spade;  "  I  always  noticed 
it.  The  woman  who  is  your  wife  may  be  a  bouncin' 
beauty,  an'  the  woman  who  ain't  may  be  as  ugly  as 
sin,  but  you'd  go  twice  as  far  to  kiss  her  all  the 
same.  Thar  is  always  a  sight  more  spice  about  the 
woman  who  ain't." 

"Jest  look  at  Eliza,  now,"  pursued  Matthew, 
wrapped  in  the  thought  of  his  own  domestic  infelici- 
ties. "What  I  could  never  understand  about 
Eliza  was  that  John  Sales  went  clean  to  the  dogs 
because  he  couldn't  git  her.  To  think  of  sech  a 
thing  happenin',  jest  as  if  I  was  to  blame,  when  if  I'd 
only  known  it  I  could  hev  turned  about  an'  taken 
her  sister  Lizzie.  Thar  were  five  of  'em  in  all,  an'  I 
settled  on  Eliza,  as  it  was,  with  my  eyes  blindfold. 
Poor  John — poor  John  !  It  was  sech  a  terrible  waste 
of  wantin'." 

"Well,  it's  a  thing  to  stiddy  about,"  said  old 
Jacob,  with  a  sigh.  "They  tell  me  now  that  that 
po'  young  gal  of  Bill  Fletcher's  has  found  it  a  thorny 
bed,  to  be  sho'.  Her  letters  are  all  bright  an'  pleas- 
ant enough,  they  say,  filled  with  fine  clothes  an'  the 
names  of  strange  places,  but  a  gentleman  who  met 
her  somewhar  over  thar  wrote  Fletcher  that  her 
husband  used  her  like  a  dumb  brute." 


TOBACCO  IS  HERO  241 

Christopher  started  and  looked  up  inquiringly. 

"Have  you  heard  anything  about  that,  Jim?" 
he  asked  in  a  queer  voice, 

"Nothin'  more.  Fletcher  told  me  he  had  written 
to  her  to  come  home,  but  she  answered  that  she 
would  stick  to  Wyndham  for  better  or  for  worse. 
It's  a  great  pity — the  marriage  promised  so  well, 
too." 

"Oh,  the  gal's  got  a  big  heart;  I  could  tell  it  from 
her  eyes,"  said  old  Jacob.  "  When  you  see  those  dark, 
solemn  eyes,  lookin'  out  of  a  pale,  peaked  face,  it 
means  thar's  a  heart  behind  'em,  an'  a  heart  that 
bodes  trouble  some  day,  whether  it  be  in  man  or 
woman." 

Christopher  passed  his  hand  across  his  brow  and 
stood  staring  vacantly  at  the  smouldering  logs.  He 
could  not  tell  whether  the  news  saddened  or  rejoiced 
him,  but,  at  least,  it  brought  Maria's  image  vividly 
before  his  eyes.  The  spell  of  her  presence  was  over 
him  again,  and  he  felt,  as  he  had  felt  on  that  last 
evening,  the  mysterious  attraction  of  her  woman- 
hood. So  intense  was  the  visionary  appeal  that  it 
had  for  the  moment  almost  the  effect  of  hallucina- 
tion ;  it  was  as  if  she  still  entreated  him  across  all  the 
distance.  The  brooding  habit  of  his  mind  had 
undoubtedly  done  much  to  conserve  his  emotion, 
as  had  the  rural  isolation  in  which  he  lived.  In  a 
city  life  the  four  years  would  probably  have  blotted 
out  her  memory;  but  where  comparison  was  impos- 
sible, and  lighter  distractions  almost  unheard  of, 
what  chance  was  there  for  him  to  forget  the  single 
passionate  experience  he  had  known  ?  Among  his 
primitive   neighbours   Maria   had   flitted   for   a  time 


242  THE  DELIVERANCE 

like  a  bewildering  vision;  then  the  great  distant 
world  had  caught  her  up  into  its  brightness,  and  the 
desolate  waste  country  was  become  the  guardian  of 
the  impression  she  had  left. 

"If  thar's  a  man  who  has  had  bad  luck  with  his 
children,  it's  Bill  Fletcher,"  old  Jacob  was  saying 
thoughtfully.  "He's  been  a  hard  man  an'  a  mean 
one,  too,  an'  when  he  couldn't  beg  or  borrow  it's  my 
opinion  that  he  never  hesitated  to  put  forth  his  hand 
an'  steal.  Thar's  a  powerful  lot  of  judgment  in  dumb 
happenin's,  an'  when  you  see  a  family  waste  out  an' 
run  to  seed  like  that  it  usually  means  that  the  good 
Lord  is  havin'  His  way  about  matters.  It  takes 
a  mighty  sharp  eye  to  tell  the  difference  between 
judgment  an'  misfortune,  an'  I've  seen  enough  in 
this  world  to  know  that,  no  matter  how  skilfully 
you  twist  up  good  an'  evil,  God  Almighty  may  be 
a  long  time  in  the  unravelling,  but  He'll  straighten 
'em  out  at  last.  Now  as  to  Bill  Fletcher,  his  sins  got 
in  the  bone  an'  they're  workin'  out  in  the  blood.  Look 
at  his  son  Bill — didn't  he  come  out  of  the  army  to 
drink  himself  to  death  ?  Then  his  granddaughter 
Maria  has  gone  an'  mismarried  a  somebody,  an' 
this  boy  that  he'd  set  his  heart  on  is  goin'  to  the 
devil  so  precious  fast  that  he  ain't  got  time  to  look 
behind  him." 

"Oh,  he's  young  yet,"  suggested  Tom  Spade, 
solemnly  wagging  his  head,  "an'  Fletcher  says,  you 
know,  that  he's  all  right  so  long  as  he  keeps  clear  of 
Mr.  Christopher.  It's  Mr.  Christopher,  he  swears, 
that's  been  the  ruin  of  him." 

Christopher  met  this  with  a  sneer. 

"Why  does  he  let  him  dog  my  footsteps,  then?" 


TOBACCO  IS  HERO  243 

he  inquired  with  a  laugh.  "I  never  goto. the  Hall, 
and  yet  he's  always  after  me." 

"Bless  you,  suh,  it  ain't  any  question  of  lettin' — 
an'  thar  never  has  been  sence  the  boy  first  put  on 
breeches.  Why,  when  I  refused  to  sell  him  whisky 
at  my  sto',  what  did  he  do  but  begin  smugglin'  it  out 
from  town !  Fletcher  found  it  out  an'  blew  him 
sky-high,  but  in  less  than  a  month  it  was  all  goin' 
on  agin." 

"An'  the  funny  part  is,"  said  Jim  Weatherby, 
"that  you  can't  dislike  Will  Fletcher,  however  much 
you  try.  He's  a  kind-hearted,  jolly  fellow,  in  spite 
of  the  devil." 

"Or  in  spite  of  Mr.  Christopher,"  added  Tom, 
with  a  guffaw. 

Frowning  heavily,  Christopher  turned  toward  the 
door. 

"Oh,  you  ask  Will  Fletcher  who  is  his  best  friend," 
he  said,  "and  let  me  hear  his  answer." 

With  an  abrupt  nod  to  Jacob,  he  went  out  of 
the  tobacco  barn  and  along  the  little  path  to  the 
road.  He  had  barely  reached  the  gate,  however, 
when  Jim  Weatherby  ran  after  him  with  the  horse- 
shoes, and  offered  eagerly  to  come  over  in  the  morning 
and  see  that  the  gray  mare  was  properly  shod. 

"I'm  handy  at  that  kind  of  thing,  you  know," 
he  explained,  with  a  blush. 

"Well,  if  you  don't  mind,  I  wish  you  would  come," 
Christopher  replied,  "but  to  save  my  life  I  can't 
see  why  you  are  so  ready  with  other  people's  jobs." 

Then,  taking  the  horseshoes,  he  opened  the  gate 
and  started  rapidly  toward  home.  His  mind  was 
still  absorbed  by  old  Jacob's  news,  and  upon  reaching 


244  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  house  he  was  about  to  pass  up  to  his  room,  when 
Cynthia  called  him  from  the  little  platform  beyond 
the  back  door,  and  going  out,  he  found  her  standing 
pale  and  tearful  on  the  kitchen  threshold.  Looking 
beyond  her,  he  saw  that  Lila  and  Tucker  were  in 
the  room,  and  from  the  intense  and  resolute  expression 
in  the  younger  sister's  face  he  judged  that  she  was 
the  central  figure  in  what  appeared  to  be  a  disturbing 
scene. 

"Christopher,  you  can't  imagine  what  has  hap- 
pened," Cynthia  began  in  her  beautiful,  tragic  voice. 
"Lila  went  to  church  yesterday — with  whom,  do  you 
suppose  ?  " 

Christopher  thought  for  a  moment. 

"Not   with   Bill   Fletcher?"   he   gave   out   at  last. 

"Come,  come,  now,  it's  a  long  ways  better  than 
that,  you'll  admit,  Cynthia,"  broke  in  Tucker, 
with  a  peaceful  intention.  "I  can't  help  reminding 
you,  my  dear,  to  be  thankful  that  it  wasn't  so 
unlikely  a  person  as  Bill  Fletcher." 

With  a  decisive  gesture  such  as  he  had  never 
believed  her  capable  of,  Lila  came  up  to  Christopher 
and  stood  facing  him  with  beaming  eyes.  He  had 
never  before  seen  her  so  lovely,  and  he  realised  at 
the  instant  that  it  was  this  she  had  always  needed 
to  complete  her  beauty.  From  something  merely 
white  and  warm  and  delicate  she  had  become  sud- 
denly as  radiant  as  a  flame. 

"I  went  with  Jim  Weatherby,  Christopher,"  she 
said  slowly,  "and  I'm  not  ashamed  of  it." 

The  admission  wrung  a  short  groan  from  Cynthia, 
who  stood  twisting  her  gingham  apron  tightly  about 
her  fineers. 


TOBACCO  IS  HERO  245 

"Oh,   Lila,  who  was  his  grandfather?"  she  cried. 

"Well,  there's  one  thing  certain,  she  doesn't  want 
to  marry  his  grandfather,"  put  in  Tucker,  undaunted 
by  the  failure  of  his  former  attempts  at  peace-making. 
"Not  that  I  have  anything  against  the  old  chap, 
for  that  matter;  he  was  an  honest,  well-behaved  old 
body,  and  used  to  mend  my  boots  for  me  up  to  the 
day  of  his  death.  Jim  gets  his  handy  ways  from 
him,  I  reckon." 

Cynthia  turned  upon  him  angrily. 

"Uncle  Tucker,  you  will  drive  me  mad,"  she 
exclaimed,  the  tears  starting  to  her  lashes.  "It 
does  seem  to  me  that  you,  at  least,  might  show 
some  consideration  for  the  family  name.  It's  all 
we've  left." 

"And  it's  a  good  enough  relic  in  its  way,"  returned 
Tucker  amicably,  "though  if  you  are  going  to 
make  a  business  of  sacrificing  yourself,  for  heaven's 
sake  let  it  be  for  something  bigger  than  a  relic.  A 
live  neighbour  is  a  much  better  thing  to  make 
sacrifices  for  than  a  dead  grandfather." 

"I  don't  care  one  bit  what  his  grandfather  was  or 
whether  he  ever  had  any  or  not !"  cried  Lila,  in  an 
outburst  of  indignation;  "and  more  than  that,  I 
don't  care  what  mine  was,  either.  I  am  going  to 
marry  him — I  am — I  am  !  Don't  look  at  me  like 
that,  Cynthia.  Do  you  want  to  spoil  my  whole 
life?" 

Cynthia  threw  out  her  hands  with  a  despairing 
grasp  of  the  air,  as  if  she  were  reaching  for  the 
broken  remnants  of  the  family  pride.  "To  marry  a 
Weatherby!"  she  gasped.  "Oh,  mother!  mother! 
Lila,  is  it  possible  that  you  can  be  so  selfish?" 


246  THE  DELIVERANCE 

But  Lila  had  won  her  freedom  too  dearly  to 
surrender  it  to  an  appeal. 

"I  want  to  be  selfish,"  she  said  stubbornly.  "I 
have  never  been  selfish  in  my  life,  and  I  want  to  see 
what  it  feels  like.  Oh,  you  are  cruel,  all  of  you, 
and  you  will  break  my  heart." 

Christopher's  face  paled  and  grew  stern. 

"We  must  all  think  of  mother's  wishes,  Lila," 
he  said  gravely. 

For  the  first  time  the  girl  lost  her  high  fortitude, 
and  a  babyish  quiver  shook  her  lips.  Her  glance 
wavered  and  fell,  and  with  a  pathetic  gesture  she 
turned  from  Christopher  to  Cynthia  and  from 
Cynthia  to  Tucker. 

"Oh,  you  can't  understand,  Christopher!"  she 
cried;  "you  have  never  been  in  love,  nor  has  Cynthia. 
None   of  you  can  understand  but   Uncle  Tucker!" 

She  ran  to  him  sobbing,  and  he,  steadying  himself 
on  a  single  crutch,  folded  his  arm  about  her. 

"I  understand,  child,  thank  God,"  he  said  softly. 


CHAPTER   II 

Between  Christopher  and  Will 

An  hour  later  Christopher  was  at  work  in  the 
stable,  when  he  heard  a  careless  whistle  outside, 
and  Will  Fletcher  looked  in  at  the  open  door. 

"  I  say,  Chris,  take  a  turn  off  and  come  down  to 
Tom  Spade's,"  he  urged. 

Christopher,  who  was  descending  from  the  loft 
with  an  armful  of  straw,  paused  midway  of  the 
ladder  and  regarded  his  visitor  with  perceptible 
hesitation. 

"I  can't  this  evening,"  he  answered;  "the  light  is 
almost  gone,  and  I've  a  good  deal  to  get  through 
with  after  dark.  I'll  manage  better  to-morrow,  if 
I  can.  By  the  way,  why  didn't  you  show  up  at 
Weatherby's  ? " 

Will  came  in  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  a  big 
wooden  box  which  contained  the  harness.  In  the 
four  years  he  had  changed  but  little  in  appearance, 
though  his  slim  figure  had  shot  up  rapidly  in  height. 
His  chestnut  hair  grew  in  high  peaks  from  his  temples 
and  swept  in  a  single  lock  above  his  small,  sparkling 
eyes,  which  held  an  expression  of  intelligent  animation. 
On  the  whole,  it  was  not  an  unpleasing  face,  despite 
the  tremulous  droop  of  the  mouth,  already  darkened 
by  the  faint  beginning  of  a  brown  mustache, 

247 


248  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Oh,  Molly  Peterkin  stopped  me  in  the  road," 
he  replied  readily.  "I'd  caught  her  eye  once  or 
twice  before,  but  this  was  the  first  chance  we'd  had 
to   speak.     I   tell  you  she's   a  peach,    Christopher." 

Christopher  came  down  from  the  ladder  and  spread 
the  straw  evenly  in  the  horses'   stalls. 

"So  they  say,"  he  responded;  "but  I  haven't 
much  of  an  eye  for  women,  you  know.  Now,  when 
it  comes  to  judging  a  leaf  of  tobacco,  I'm  a  match 
for  any  man." 

"Well,  one  can't  be  everything,"  remarked  Will 
consolingly.  He  snatched  at  a  piece  of  straw  that 
had  fallen  on  the  lowest  rung  of  the  ladder  and  began 
idly  chewing  it.  "As  for  me,  I  know  a  blamed 
sight  more  about  women  than  I  do  about  tobacco," 
he  added,  with  a  swagger. 

Christopher  glanced  up,  and  at  "sight  of  the  boyish 
figure  burst  into  a  hearty  laugh. 

"  Oh,  you're  a  jolly  old  sport,  I  know,  and  to  think 
that  Tom  Spade  has  been  accusing  me  of  leading 
you  astray !  Why,  you  are  already  twice  the  man 
that  I  am." 

"Pshaw!  That's  just  grandpa's  chatter!  The 
old  man  rails  at  me  day  and  night  about  you  until 
it's  a  mortal  wonder  he  doesn't  drive  me  to  the  dogs 
outright.  I'd  like  to  see  another  fellow  that  would 
put  up  with  it  for  a  week.  Captain  Morrison  told 
him,  you  know,  that  I  hadn't  done  a  peg  of  study 
for  a  year,  and  it  brought  on  a  scene  that  almost 
shook  the  roof.  Now  he  swears  I'm  to  go  to  the 
university  next  fall  or  hang." 

"Well,  I'd  go,  by  all  means." 

"What    under    heaven    could    I    do    there?      All 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     249 

those  confounded  languages  Morrison  poured  into 
my  head  haven't  left  so  much  as  a  single  letter  of 
the  alphabet.  Ad  nauseam  is  all  I  learned  of  Latin. 
I  tell  you  I'd  rather  be  a  storekeeper  any  time  than 
a  scholar — books  make  me  sick  all  over — and,  when 
it  comes  to  that,  I  don't  believe  I  know  much  more 
to-day  than  you  do." 

A  smile  crossed  Christopher's  face,  leaving  it  very 
grim.  The  words  recalled  to  him  his  own  earlier 
ambition — that  of  the  gentlemanly  scholar  of  the 
old  order — and  there  flickered  before  his  eyes  the 
visionary  library,  suffused  with  firelight,  and  the 
translation  of  the  "Iliad"  he  had  meant  to  finish. 

"I  always  told  you  it  wasn't  worth  anything," 
he  said  roughly.  "Not  worth  so  much  as  Molly 
Peterkin's  little  finger.  Do  you  think  she'd  love 
you  any  better  if  you  could  spurt  Greek  ? ' ' 

Will  broke  into  a  pleased  laugh,  his  mind  dwelling 
upon  the  fancy  the  other  had  conjured  up  so 
skilfully. 

"Did  you  ever  see  such  lips  in  your  life?"  he 
inquired. 

Christopher  shook  his  head.  "I  haven't  noticed 
them,  but  Sol's  have  a  way  of  sticking  in  my  memory." 

"Oh,  you  brute!  It's  a  shame  that  she  should 
have  such  a  father.    He's  about  the  worst  I  ever  met." 

"Some  think  the  shame  is  on  the  other  side,  you 
know." 

"That's  a  lie — she  told  me  so.  Fred  Turner 
started  the  whole  thing  because  she  refused  to  marry 
him  at  the  last  moment.  She  found  out  suddenly 
that  she  wasn't  in  love  with  him.  Girls  are  like 
that,  you  see.     Why,  Maria " 


250  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Christopher  looked  up  quickly. 

"I've  nothing  to  do  with  your  sister,"  he  observed. 

"I  know  that;  but  it's  true,  all  the  same.  Maria 
couldn't  tell  her  own  mind  any  better.  Why,  one 
day  she  was  declaring  that  she  was  over  head  and 
ears  in  love  with  Jack,  and  the  next  she  was  wringing 
her  hands  and  begging  him  to  go  away." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  down  at  the  store?" 
asked  Christopher  abruptly. 

"Oh,  nothing  in  particular — just  lounge,  I  suppose; 
there's  never  anything  to  do.  By  the  way,  can't 
we  have  a  hunt  to-morrow?" 

"I'll  see  about  it.  Look  here,  is  your  grandfather 
any  worse  than  usual  ?  He  stormed  at  me  like  mad 
yesterday  because  I  wouldn't  turn  my  team  of  oxen 
out  of  the  road." 

"It's  like  blasting  rock  to  get  a  decent  word  out 
of  him.  The  only  time  he's  been  good-humoured 
for  four  years  was  the  week  we  were  away  together. 
He  offered  me  five  thousand  dollars  down  if  I'd 
never  speak  to  you  again." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  exclaimed  Christopher.  He 
bent  his  head  and  stood  looking  thoughtfully  at  the 
matted  straw  under  foot.  "Well,  you  had  a  chance 
to  turn  a  pretty  penny,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  gentle 
raillery. 

"Oh,  hang  it!  What  do  you  mean?"  demanded 
Will.  "Of  course,  I  wasn't  going  back  on  you  like 
that  just  to  please  grandpa.  I'd  have  been  a  con- 
founded sneak  if  I  had!" 

"You're  a  jolly  good  chap  and  no  mistake!  But 
the  old  man  would  have  been  pleased,  I  reckon?" 

Will  grinned. 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     251 

' '  You  bet  he  would  !  I  could  twist  him  round  my 
finger  but  for  you,  Aunt  Saidie  says." 

"It  will  be  all  the  same  in  the  end,  though.  The 
whole  thing  will  come  to  you  some  day." 

"  Oh,  yes.  Maria  got  her  share,  and  Wyndham  has 
made  ducks  and  drakes  of  it." 

"Your  grandfather's  aging,  too,  isn't  he?" 

"Rather,"  returned  Will,  with  a  curious  mixture 
of  amiable  lightness  and  cool  brutality.  "He's 
gone  off  at  least  twenty  years  since  that  time  I  had 
pneumonia  in  your  barn.  That  wrecked  him,  Aunt 
Saidie  says,  and  all  because  he  knew  he'd  have  to 
put  up  with  you  when  the  doctor  told  him  to  let  me 
have  my  way.  His  temper  gets  worse,  too,  all  the 
time.  I  declare,  he  sometimes  makes  me  wish  he 
were  dead  and  buried." 

"Oh,  he'll  live  long  enough  yet,  never  fear — those 
wiry,  cross-grained  people  are  as  tough  as  lightwood 
knots.  It's  a  pity,  though,  he  wants  to  bully  you 
like  that — it  would  kill  me  in  a  day." 

A  flush  mounted  to  Will's  forehead.  "I  knew 
you'd  think  so,"  he  said,  "and  it's  what  I  tell  him 
all  the  time.  He's  got  no  business  meddling  with  me 
so  much,  and  I  won't  stand  it." 

"He  ought  to  get  a  dog,"  suggested  Christopher 
indifferently. 

"Well,  I'm  not  a  dog,  and  I'll  make  him  under- 
stand it  yet.  Oh,  you  think  I'm  an  awful  milksop, 
of  course,  but  I'll  show  you  otherwise  some  day. 
I'd  like  to  know  if  you  could  have  done  any  better 
in  my  place?" 

"Done!  Why,  I  shouldn't  have  been  in  your 
place  long,  that's  all." 


252  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"I  shan't,  either,  for  that  matter;  but  I've  got  to 
humour  him  a  little,  you  see,  because  he  holds  the 
purse-strings." 

"He'd  never  go  so  far  as  to  kick  you  out,  would 
he?" 

"Well,  hardly.  I'm  all  he  has,  you  know.  He 
doesn't  like  Maria  because  of  her  fine  airs,  much  as  he 
thinks  of  education.  I've  got  to  be  a  gentleman, 
he  says ;  but  as  for  him,  he  wouldn't  give  up  one  of 
his  vulgar  habits  to  save  anybody's  soul.  His 
trouble  with  Maria  all  came  of  her  reproving  him 
for  drinking  out  of  his  saucer.  Now,  I  don't  mind 
that  kind  of  thing  so  much,  but  Maria  used  to  say 
she'd  rather  have  him  steal,  any  day,  than  gulp  his 
coffee.     Why  are  you  laughing  so?" 

"Oh,  nothing.  Are  you  going  to  Tom's  now? 
I've  got  to  work." 

Will  slid  down  from  the  big  box  and  sauntered 
toward  the  door,  pausing  on  the  little  wooden  step 
to  light  a  cigarette. 

"Drop  in  if  you  get  a  chance,"  he  threw  back 
over  his  shoulder,  with  a  puff  of  smoke. 

In  a  few  moments  Christopher  finished  his  work, 
and,  coming  outside,  closed  the  stable  door.  Then  he 
walked  a  few  paces  along  the  little  path,  stopping 
from  time  to  time  to  gaze  across  the  darkening 
landscape.  A  light  mist  was  wreathed  about  the 
tops  of  the  old  lilac-bushes,  where  it  glimmered  so 
indistinctly  that  it  seemed  as  if  one  might  dispel  it 
by  a  breath;  and  farther  away  the  soft  evening 
colours  had  settled  over  the  great  fields,  beyond 
which  a  clear  yellow  line  was  just  visible  above  the 
distant  woods.     The  wind  was  sharp  with  an  edge  cf 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     253 

frost,  and  as  it  blew  into  his  face  he  raised  his  head 
and  drank  long,  invigorating  drafts.  From  the 
cattle-pen  hard  by  he  smelled  the  fresh  breath  of  the 
cows,  and  around  him  were  those  other  odours, 
vague,  familiar,  pleasant,  which  are  loosened  at 
twilight  in  the  open  country. 

The  time  had  been  when  the  mere  physical  contact 
with  the  air  would  have  filled  him  with  a  quiet  satis- 
faction, but  during  the  last  four  years  he  had  lost 
gradually  his  sensitiveness  to  external  things — to 
the  changes  of  the  seasons  as  to  the  beauties  of  an 
autumn  sunrise.  A  clear  morning  had  ceased  to 
arouse  in  him  the  old  buoyant  energy,  and  he  had 
lost  the  zest  of  muscular  exertion  which  had  done 
so  much  to  sweeten  his  labour  in  the  fields.  It  was 
as  if  a  clog  fettered  his  simplest  no  less  than  his 
greatest  emotion;  and  his  enjoyment  of  nature  had 
grown  dull  and  spiritless,  like  his  affection  for  his 
family.  With  his  sisters  he  was  aware  that  a  curious 
constraint  had  become  apparent,  and  it  was  no  longer 
possible  for  him  to  meet  his  mother  with  the  gay 
deference  she  still  exacted.  There  were  times,  even, 
when  he  grew  almost  suspicious  of  Cynthia's  patience, 
and  at  such  moments  his  irritation  was  manifested 
in  a  sullen  reserve.  To  himself  he  could  give  no 
explanation  of  his  state  of  mind;  he  knew  merely 
that  he  retreated  day  by  day  farther  into  the  shadow 
of  his  loneliness,  and  that,  while  in  his  heart  he 
still  craved  human  sympathy,  an  expression  of  it 
even  from  those  he  loved  was,  above  all,  the  thing 
he  most  bitterly  resented. 

A  light  flashed  in  the  kitchen,  and  he  went  on 
slowly  toward  the  house.     As  he  reached  the  back 


254  THE   DELIVERANCE 

porch  he  saw  that  Lila  was  sitting  at  the  kitchen 
window  looking  wearily  out  into  the  dusk.  The 
firelight  scintillated  in  her  eyes,  and  as  she  turned 
quickly  at  a  sound  within  the  room  he  noticed  with  a 
pang  that  the  sparkles  were  caused  by  teardrops 
on  her  lashes.  His  heart  quickened  at  the  sight  of 
her  drooping  figure,  and  an  impulse  seized  him  to 
go  in  and  comfort  her  at  any  cost.  Then  his  severe 
constraint  laid  an  icy  hold  upon  him,  and  he  hesi- 
tated with  his  hand  upon  the  door. 

"If  I  go  in  and  speak  to  her,  what  is  there  for 
me  to  say?"  he  thought,  overcome  by  his  horror  of 
any  uncontrolled  emotion.  "We  will  merely  go 
over  the  old  complaints,  the  endless  explanations. 
She  will  probably  weep  like  a  child,  and  I  shall  feel  a 
brute  when  I  look  on  and  keep  silent.  In  the  first 
place,  if  I  speak  to  her,  what  is  there  for  me  to  say  ? 
If  I  simply  beg  her  to  stop  crying,  or  if  I  rush  in  and 
urge  her  to  marry  Jim  Weatherby  to-morrow,  what 
good  can  come  of  either  course?  She  doesn't  wait 
for  my  consent  to  the  marriage,  for  she  is  as  old  as  I 
am,  and  knows  her  own  heart  much  better  than  I 
know  mine.  It  is  true  that  she  is  too  beautiful 
to  waste  away  like  this,  but  how  can  I  prevent  it, 
or  what  is  there  for  me  to  do?" 

Again  came  the  impulse  to  go  in  and  fold  her  in 
his  arms,  but  before  he  had  taken  the  first  step 
he  yielded,  as  always,  to  his  strange  reserve,  and  he 
realised  that  if  he  entered  it  would  be  but  to  assume 
his  customary  unconcern,  from  the  shelter  of  which 
he  would  probably  make  a  few  commonplace  remarks 
on  trivial  subjects.  The  emotional  situation  would 
be  ignored  by  them  all,  he  knew;  they  would  treat 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     255 

it  absolutely  as  if  it  had  no  existence,  as  if  its  voice 
was  not  speaking  to  them  in  the  silence,  and  they 
would  break  their  bread  and  drink  their  coffee  in 
apparent  unconsciousness  that  supper  was  not  the 
single  thing  that  engrossed  their  thoughts.  And 
all  the  time  they  would  be  face  to  face  with  the 
knowledge  that  they  had  demanded  that  Lila  should 
sacrifice  her  life. 

Presently  Cynthia  came  out  and  called  him,  and 
he  went  in  carelessly  and  sat  down  at  the  table. 
Lila  left  the  window  and  slipped  into  her  place,  and 
when  Tucker  joined  them  she  cut  up  his  food  as 
usual  and  prepared  his  coffee. 

"Uncle  Tucker's  cup  has  no  handle,  Cynthia," 
she  said  with  concern.  "Let  me  take  this  one  and 
give  him  another." 

"Well,  I  never!"  exclaimed  Cynthia,  bending  over 
to  examine  the  break  with  her  near-sighted  squint. 
"We'll  soon  have  to  begin  using  Aunt  Susannah's 
set,  if  this  keeps  up.  Uncle  Boaz,  you've  broken 
another  cup  to-day." 

Her  tone  was  sharp  with  irritation,  and  the  fine 
wrinkles  caused  by  ceaseless  small  worries  appeared 
instantly  between  her  eyebrows.  Christopher, 
watching  her,  remembered  that  she  had  worn  the 
same  expression  during  the  scene  with  Lila,  and  it 
annoyed  him  unspeakably  that  she  should  be  able 
to  descend  so  readily,  and  with  equal  energy,  upon 
so  insignificant  a  grievance  as  a  bit  of  broken  china. 

Uncle  Boaz  hobbled  round  the  table  and  peered 
contemptuously  at  the  cup  which  Lila  held. 

"Dar  warn'  no  use  bruckin'  dat  ar  one,"  he 
observed,  " 'caze  'twuz  bruck  a'ready." 


256  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Oh,  there  won't  be  a  piece  left  presently," 
pursued  Cynthia  indignantly;  and  Christopher  felt 
suddenly  that  there  was  something  contemptible 
in  the  passion  she  expended  upon  trifles.  He  wondered 
if  Tucker  noticed  how  horribly  petty  it  all  was — 
to  lament  a  broken  cup  when  the  tears  were  hardly 
dried  on  Lila's  cheeks. 

Finishing  hurriedly,  he  pushed  back  his  chair  and 
rose  from  the  table,  shaking  his  head  in  response  to 
Cynthia's  request  that  he  should  go  in  to  see  his 
mother. 

"Not  now,"  he  said  impatiently,  with  that 
nervous  avoidance  of  the  person  he  loved  best. 
"I'll  be  back  in  time  to  carry  her  to  bed,  but  I've 
got  to  take  a  half-hour  off  and  look  in  on  Tom  Spade." 

"She  really  ought  to  go  to  bed  before  sundown," 
responded  Cynthia,  "but  nothing  under  heaven 
will  persuade  her  to  do  so.  It's  her  wonderful 
will  that  keeps  her  alive,  just  as  it  keeps  her  sitting 
bolt  upright  in  that  old  chair.  I  don't  believe 
there's  another  woman  on  earth  who  could  have 
done  it  for  more  than  twenty  years." 

Taking  down  his  hat  from  a  big  nail  in  the  wall, 
Christopher  stood  for  a  moment  abstractedly  fingering 
the   brim. 

"Well,  I'll  be  back  shortly,"  he  said  at  last,  and 
went  out  hurriedly  into  the  darkness. 

At  the  instant  he  could  not  tell  why  he  had  so 
suddenly  decided  to  follow  Will  Fletcher  to  the 
store,  but,  as  usual,  when  the  impulse  came  to 
him  he  proceeded  to  act.  promptly  as  it  directed. 
Strangely  enough,  the  boy  was  the  one  human  being 
whom  he  felt  no  inclination  to  avoid,  and  the  least 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     257 

oppressive  moments  that  he  knew  were  the  reckless 
ones  they  spent  together.  While  his  daily  companion 
was  mentally  and  morally  upon  a  lower  plane  than 
his  own,  the  association  was  not  without  a  balm  for 
his  wounded  pride;  and  the  knowledge  that  it  was 
still  possible  to  assume  superiority  to  Fletcher's 
heir  was,  so  far  as  he  himself  admitted,  the  one 
consolation  that  his  life  contained.  As  for  his 
feeling  toward  Will  Fletcher  as  an  individual,  it 
was  the  outcome  of  so  curious  a  mixture  of  attraction 
and  repulsion  that  he  had  long  ceased  from  any 
attempt  to  define  it  as  pure  emotion.  For  the 
last  four  years  the  boy  had  been,  as  Tom  Spade 
put  it,  "the  very  shadow  on  the  man's  footsteps," 
and  yet  at  the  end  of  that  time  it  was  almost  impossi- 
ble for  Christopher  to  acknowledge  either  his  liking 
or  his  hatred.  He  had  suffered  him  for  his  own 
end,  that  was  all,  and  he  had  come  at  last  almost  to 
enjoy  the  tolerance  that  he  displayed.  The  hero- 
worship — the  natural  imitation  of  youth — was  at 
least  not  unpleasant,  and  there  had  been  days  during 
a  brief  absence  of  the  boy  when  Christopher  had, 
to  his  surprise,  become  aware  of  a  positive  vacancy 
in  his  surroundings.  So  long  as  Will  made  no  evident 
attempt  to  rise  above  him — so  long,  indeed,  as 
Fletcher's  grandson  kept  to  Fletcher's  level,  it  was 
possible  that  the  companionship  would  continue  as 
harmoniously  as  it  had  begun. 

In  the  store  he  found  Tom  Spade  and  his  wife — 
an  angular,  strong- featured  woman,  in  purple  calico, 
who  carried  off  the  reputation  of  a  shrew  with  noisy 
honours.  When  he  asked  for  Will,  the  store- 
keeper  turned  from  the   cash-drawer  which  he  was 


258  THE  DELIVERANCE 

emptying  and  nodded  toward  the  half-open  door  of 
the  adjoining  room. 

"Several  of  the  young  fellows  are  in  thar  now," 
he  remarked  offhand,  "an'  I've  jest  had  to  go  in  an' 
git  between  Fred  Turner  an'  Will  Fletcher.  They 
came  to  out-an'-out  blows,  an'  I  had  to  shake  'em 
both  by  the  scuff  of  thar  necks  befo'  they'd  hish 
snarlin'.  Bless  yo'  life,  all  about  a  woman,  too, 
every  last  word  of  it.  Well,  well,  meanin'  no  dis- 
respect to  you,  Susan,  it's  a  queer  thing  that  a  man 
can't  be  born,  married,  or  buried  without  a  woman 
gittin'  herself  mixed  up  in  the  business.  If  she 
ain't  wrappin'  you  in  swaddlin'  bands,  you  may  be 
sho'  she's  measurin'  off  yo'  windin' -sheet.  Mark 
my  words,  Mr.  Christopher,  I  don't  believe  thar's 
ever  been  a  fight  fought  on  this  earth — be  it  a  battle 
or  a  plain  fisticuff — that  it  warn't  started  in  the 
brain  of  somebody's  mother,  wife,  or  sweetheart — 
an'  it's  most  likely  to  have  been  the  sweetheart. 
It  is  strange,  when  you  come  to  study  'bout  it,  how 
sech  peaceable-lookin'  creaturs  as  women  kin  have 
sech  hearty  appetites  for  trouble." 

"Well,  trouble  may  be  born  of  a  woman,  but  it 
generally  manages  to  take  the  shape  of  a  man," 
observed  Mrs.  Spade  from  behind  the  counter, 
where  she  was  filling  a  big  glass  jar  with  a  fresh 
supply  of  striped  peppermint  candy.  "And  as  far 
as  that  goes,  ever  sence  the  Garden  of  Eden,  men 
have  taken  a  good  deal  mo'  pleasure  in  layin'  the 
blame  on  thar  wives  than  they  do  in  layin'  blows 
on  the  devil.  It's  a  fortunate  woman  that  don't 
wake  up  the  day  after  the  weddin'  an'  find  she's 
married  an  Adam  instid  of  a  man.     However,  they 


BETWEEN   CHRISTOPHER  AND   WILL      259 

are  as  the  Lord  made  'em,  I  reckon,"  she  finished 
charitably,  "which  ain't  so  much  to  thar  credit  as  it 
sounds,  seein'  they  could  have  done  over  sech  a  po' 
job  with  precious  little  trouble." 

"  Oh,  I  warn't  aimin'  at  you,  Susan,"  Tom  hastened 
to  assure  her,  aware  from  experience  that  he  entered 
an  argument  only  to  be  worsted.  "You've  been  a 
good  wife  to  me,  for  all  yo'  sharp  tongue,  an'  I've 
never  had  to  git  up  an'  light  the  fire  sence  the  day  I 
married  you.  Yes,  you've  been  a  first-rate  wife  to 
me,  an'  no  mistake." 

"I'm  the  last  person  you  need  tell  that  to,"  was 
Mrs.  Spade's  retort.  "I  don't  reckon  I've  b'iled 
inside  an'  sweated  outside  for  mo'  than  twenty 
years  without  knowin'  it.  Lord !  Lord  !  If  it  took 
as  hard  work  to  be  a  Christian  as  it  does  to  be  a 
wife,  thar'd  be  mighty  few  but  men  in  the  next 
world — an'  they'd  git  thar  jest  by  followin'  like 
sheep  arter  Adam " 

"I  declar',  Susan,  I  didn't  mean  to  rile  you," 
urged  Tom,  breaking  in  upon  the  flow  of  words 
with  an  appealing  effort  to  divert  its  course.  "I 
was  merely  crackin'  a  joke  with  Mr.  Christopher, 
you  know." 

"I'm  plum  sick  of  these  here  jokes  that's  got  to 
have  a  woman  on  the  p'int  of  'em,"  returned  Mrs. 
Spade,  tightly  screwing  on  the  top  of  the  glass  jar. 
"  I've  always  noticed  that  thar  ain't  nothin'  so  funny 
in  this  world  but  it  gits  a  long  sight  funnier  if  a  man 
kin  turn  it  on  his  wife " 

"Now,    my    dear "     helplessly    expostulated 

Tom. 

"My  name's  Susan,  Tom  Spade,  an'  I'll  have  you 


26o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

call  me  by  it  or  not  at  all.  If  thar's  one  thing  I 
hate  on  this  earth  it's  a  'dear'  in  the  mouth  of  a 
married  man  that  ought  to  know  better.  I'd  every 
bit  as  lief  you'd  shoot  a  lizard  at  me,  an'  you  ain't 
jest  found  it  out.  If  you  think  I'm  the  kind  of 
person  to  git  any  satisfaction  out  of  improper  speeches 
you  were  never  mo'  mistaken  in  yo'  life;  an'  I  kin 
p'int  out  to  you  right  now  that  I  ain't  never  heard 
one  of  them  words  yit  that  I  ain't  had  to  pay  for  it. 
A  'dear'  the  mo'  is  mighty  apt  to  mean  a  bucket  of 
water  the  less.  Oh,  you  can't  turn  my  head  with 
yo'  soft  tricks,  Tom  Spade.  I'm  a  respectable  woman, 
as  my  mother  was  befo'  me,  an'  I  don't  want  familiar 
doin's  from  any  man,  alive  or  dead.  The  woman 
who  does,  whether  she  be  married  or  single,  ain't 
no  better  than  a  female — that's  my  opinion!" 

She  paused  to  draw  breath,  and  Tom  was  quick 
to  take  advantage  of  the  intermission.  "Good 
Lord,  Mr.  Christopher,  those  darn  young  fools  are 
at  it  agin  ! "  he  exclaimed,  darting  toward  the  adjoin- 
ing room. 

With  a  stride,  Christopher  pushed  past  him  and, 
opening  the  door,  stopped  uncertainly  upon  the 
threshold. 

At  the  first  glance  he  saw  that  the  trouble  was 
between  Will  and  Fred  Turner,  and  that  Will, 
because  of  his  slighter  weight,  had  got  very  much 
the  worst  of  the  encounter.  The  boy  stood  now, 
trembling  with  anger  and  bleeding  at  the  mouth, 
beside  an  overturned  table,  while  Fred — a  stout, 
brawny  fellow — was  busily  pummelling  his  shoulders. 

"You're  a  sneakin',  puny-livered  liar,  that's  what 
you  are!"  finished  Turner  with  a  vengeance. 


BETWEEN  CHRISTOPHER  AND  WILL     261 

Christopher   walked   leisurely   across   the   room. 

"And  you're  another,"  he  observed  in  a  quiet 
voice — the  voice  of  his  courtly  father,  which  always 
came  to  him  in  moments  of  white  heat.  "You  are 
exactly  that — a  sneaking,  puny-livered  liar."  His 
manner  was  so  courteous  that  it  came  as  a  surprise 
when  he  struck  out  from  the  shoulder  and  felled 
Fred  as  easily  as  he  might  have  knocked  over  a 
wooden  tenpin.  "You  really  must  learn  better 
manners,"  he  remarked  coolly,  looking  down  upon 
him. 

Then  he  wiped  his  brow  on  his  blue  shirt-sleeve 
and  called  for  a  glass  of  beer. 


CHAPTER   III 

Mrs.  Blake  Speaks  Her  Mind  on  Several  Matters 

Breakfast  was  barely  over  the  next  morning 
when  Jim  Weatherby  appeared  at  the  kitchen 
door  carrying  a  package  of  horseshoe  nails  and  a 
small  hammer. 

"I  thought  perhaps  Christopher  might  want  to 
use  the  mare  early,"  he  explained  to  Cynthia,  who 
was  clearing  off  the  table.  There  was  a  pleasant 
precision  in  his  speech,  acquired  with  much  industry 
at  the  little  country  school,  and  Cynthia,  despite  her 
rigid  disfavour,  could  not  but  notice  that  when  he 
glanced  round  the  room  in  search  of  Lila  he  displayed 
the  advantage  of  an  aristocratic  profile.  Until 
to-day  she  could  not  remember  that  she  had  ever 
seen  him  directly,  as  it  were;  she  had  looked  around 
him  and  beyond  him,  much  as  she  might  have 
obliterated  from  her  vision  a  familiar  shrub  that 
chanced  to  intrude  itself  into  her  point  of  view. 
The  immediate  result  of  her  examination  was  the 
possibility  she  dimly  acknowledged  that  a  man 
might  exist  as  a  well-favoured  individual  and 
yet  belong  to  an  unquestionably  lower  class 
of   life. 

"Well,  I'll  go  out  to  the  stable,"  added  Jim,  after 
a  moment  in  which  he  had  patiently  submitted  to  her 

263 


264  THE  DELIVERANCE 

squinting  observation.  "Christopher  will  be  some- 
where  about,    I   suppose?" 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  replied  Cynthia  indifferently, 
emptying  the  coffee-grounds  into  the  kitchen  sink. 
The  asperity  of  her  tone  was  caused  by  the  entrance 
of  Lila,  who  came  in  with  a  basin  of  corn-meal  dough 
tucked  under  her  bared  arm,  which  showed  as  round 
and  delicate  as  a  child's  beneath  her  loosely  rolled- 
up  sleeve. 

"Cynthia,  I  can't  find  the  hen-house  key,"  she 
began;  and  then,  catching  sight  of  Jim,  she  flushed 
a  clear  pink,  while  the  little  brown  mole  ran  a  race 
with  the  dimple  in  her  cheek. 

"The  key  is  on  that  nail  beside  the  dried  hops," 
returned  Cynthia  sternly.  "I  found  it  in  the  lock 
last  night  and  brought  it  in.  It's  a  mercy  that  the 
chickens  weren't  all  stolen." 

Without  replying,  Lila  took  down  the  key,  strung 
it  on  her  little  finger,  and,  going  to  the  door,  passed 
with  Jim  out  into  the  autumn  sunshine.  Her  soft 
laugh  pulsed  back  presently,  and  Cynthia,  hearing 
it,  set  her  thin  lips  tightly  as  she  carefully  rinsed 
the  coffee-pot  with  soda. 

Christopher,  who  had  just  come  up  to  the  well- 
brink,  where  Tucker  sat  feeding  the  hounds  from  a 
plate  of  scraps,  gave  an  abrupt  nod  in  the  direction 
of  the  lovers  strolling  slowly  down  the  hen-house 
path. 

"It  will  end  that  way  some  day,  I  reckon,"  he 
said  with  a  sigh,  "and  you  know  I'm  almost  of  a 
mind  with  Cynthia  about  it.  It  does  seem  a  down- 
right pity.  Not  that  Jim  isn't  a  good  chap  and 
all  that,  but    he's    an   honest,  hard-working    farmer 


MRS.  BLAKE  SPEAKS  HER  MIND       265 

and  nothing  more — and,  good  heavens  !  just  look 
at  Lila !  Why,  she's  beautiful  enough  to  set  the 
world  afire. " 

Smiling  broadly,  Tucker  tossed  a  scrap  of  corn- 
bread  into  Spy's  open  jaws;  then  his  gaze  travelled 
leisurely  to  the  hen-house,  which  Lila  had  just 
unlocked.  As  she  pushed  back  the  door  there  was 
a  wild  flutter  of  wings,  and  the  big  fowls  flew  in  a 
swarm  about  her  feet,  one  great  red-and -black  rooster 
craning  his  long  neck  after  the  basin  she  held  beneath 
her  arm.  While  she  scattered  the  soft  dough  on 
the  ground  she  bent  her  head  slightly  sideways, 
looking  up  at  Jim,  who  stood  regarding  her  with 
enraptured  eyes. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  much  good  ever  comes 
of  setting  anything  afire,"  answered  Tucker  with 
his  amiable  chuckle;  "the  danger  is  that  you're  apt 
to  cause  a  good  deal  of  trouble  somewhere,  and  it's 
more  than  likely  you'll  get  singed  yourself  in  putting 
out  the  flame.  You  needn't  worry  about  Lila, 
Christopher;  she's  the  kind  of  woman — and  they're 
rare — who  doesn't  have  to  have  her  happiness  made 
to  order;  give  her  any  fair  amount  of  the  raw  material 
and  she'll  soon  manage  to  fit  it  perfectly  to  herself. 
The  stuff  is  in  her,  I  tell  you;  the  atmosphere  is  about 
her — can't  you  feel  it  ? — and  she's  going  to  be  happy, 
whatever  comes.  A  woman  who  can  make  over  a 
dress  the  sixth  time  as  cheerfully  as  she  did  the  first 
has  the  spirit  of  a  Caesar,  and  doesn't  need  your 
lamentations.  If  you  want  to  be  a  Jeremiah,  you 
must  go  elsewhere." 

"Oh,  I  dare  say  she'll  grow  content,  but  it  does 
seem  such  a  terrible  waste.     She's  the  image  of  that 


266  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Saint-Memin  portrait  of  Aunt  Susannah,  and  if  she'd 
only  been  born  a  couple  of  generations  ago  she  would 
probably  have  been  the  belle  of  two  continents. 
Such  women  must  be  scarce  anywhere." 

"She's  pretty  enough,  certainly,  and  I  think  Jim 
knows  it.  There's  but  one  thing  I've  ever  seen  that 
could  compare  with  her  for  colour,  and  that's  a 
damask  rose  that  blooms  in  May  on  an  old  bush  in 
the  front  yard.  When  all  is  said,  however,  that 
young  Weatherby  is  no  clodhopper,  you  know,  and  I'm 
not  sure  that  he  isn't  worthier  of  her  than  any  high- 
sounding  somebody  across  the  water  would  have 
been.  He  can  love  twice  as  hard,  I'll  wager,  and 
that's  the  chief  thing,  after  all;  it's  worth  more  than 
big  titles  or  fine  clothes — or  even  than  dead  grand- 
fathers, with  due  respect  to  Cynthia.  I  tell  you, 
Lila  may  never  stir  from  the  midst  of  these  tobacco 
fields;  she  may  be  buried  alive  all  her  days  between 
these  muddy  roads  that  lead  heaven  knows  where, 
and  yet  she  may  live  a  lot  bigger  and  fuller  life  than 
she  might  have  done  with  all  London  at  her  feet, 
as  they  say  it  was  at  your  Greataunt  Susannah's. 
The  person  who  has  to  have  outside  props  to  keep 
him  straight  must  have  been  made  mighty  crooked 
at  the  start,  and  Lila's  not  like  that." 

Christopher  stooped  and  pulled  Spy's  ears. 

"That's  as  good  a  way  to  look  at  it  as  any  other, 
I  reckon, "  he  remarked;  "and  now  I've  got  to  hurry 
the  shoeing  of  the  mare." 

He  crossed  over  and  joined  Lila  and  Jim  before 
the  hen-house  door,  where  he  put  the  big  fowls  to 
noisy  flight. 

"Well,  you're  a  trusty  neighbour,"  he  cried  good- 


MRS.  BLAKE  SPEAKS  HER  MIND       267 

humoredly,  striking  Jim  a  friendly  blow  that  sent 
him  reeling  out  into  the  path. 

Lila  passed  her  hand  in  a  sweeping  movement 
round  the  inside  of  the  basin  and  flirted  the 
last  drops  of  dough  from  her  finger-tips. 

"A  few  of  your  pats  will  cripple  Jim  for  a 
week,"  she  observed,  "so  you'd  better  be  careful; 
he's  too  useful  a  friend  to  lose  while  there  are  any 
jobs  to  do. " 

"Why,  if  I  had  that  muscle  I  could  run  a  farm 
with  one  hand,"  said  Jim.  "Give  a  plough  a  single 
push,  Christopher,  and  I  believe  it  would  run  as 
long  as  there  was  level  ground. ' ' 

Cynthia,  standing  at  the  kitchen  window  with  a 
cup-towel  slung  across  her  arm,  watched  the  three 
chatting  merrily  in  the  sunshine,  and  the  look  of 
rigid  resentment  settled  like  a  mask  upon  her  face. 
She  was  still  gazing  out  upon  them  when  Docia 
opened  the  door  behind  her  and  informed  her  in  a 
whisper  that  "  Ole  miss  wanted  her  moughty  quick.  " 

"All  right,  Docia.     Is  anything   the  matter?" 

"Naw'm,  'tain'  nuttin'  'tall  de  matter.  She's 
des  got  fidgetty. " 

"Well,  I'll  come  in  a  minute.  Are  you  better 
to-day?     How's  your  heart?" 

"Lawd,  Miss  Cynthia,  hit's  des  bruised  all  over. 
Ev'y  breaf  I  draw  hits  it  plum  like  a  hammer. 
I  hyear  hit  thump,  thump,  thump  all  de  blessed 
time. " 

"Be  careful,  then.  Tell  mother  I'm  coming  at 
once. " 

She  hung  the  cup-towel  on  the  rack,  and,  taking 
off  her  blue   checked   apron,   went   along  the   little 


268  THE  DELIVERANCE 

platform  to  the  main  part  of  the  house  and  into  the 
old  lady's  parlour,  where  the  morning  sunshine  fell 
across  the  faces  of  generations  of  dead  Blakes.  The 
room  was  still  furnished  with  the  old  rosewood 
furniture,  and  the  old  damask  curtains  hung  before 
the  single  window,  which  gave  on  the  overgrown 
front  yard  and  the  twisted  aspen.  Though  the  rest 
of  the  house  suggested  only  the  direst  poverty,  the 
immediate  surroundings  of  Mrs.  Blake  revealed 
everywhere  the  lavish  ease  so  characteristic  of  the 
old  order  which  had  passed  away.  The  carving  on 
the  desk,  on  the  book-cases,  on  the  slender  sofa, 
was  all  wrought  by  tedious  handwork;  the  delicate 
damask  coverings  to  the  chairs  were  still  lustrous 
after  almost  half  a  century;  and  the  few  vases 
scattered  here  and  there  and  filled  with  autumn 
flowers  were,  for  the  most  part,  rare  pieces  of  old 
royal  Worcester.  While  'it  was  yet  Indian  summer, 
there  was  no  need  of  fires,  and  the  big  fireplace  was 
filled  with  goldenrod,  which  shed  a  yellow  dust 
down  on  the  rude  brick  hearth. 

The  old  lady,  inspired  by  her  indomitable  energy, 
was  already  dressed  for  tfoe-day  in  her  black  brocade, 
and  sat  bolt  upright  among  the  pillows  in  her  great 
oak   chair. 

"Some  one  passed  the  window  whistling,  Cynthia. 
Who  was  it  ?  The  whistle  had  a  pleasant,  cheery 
sound.  " 

"It  must  have  been  Jim  Weatherby,  I  think: 
old   Jacob's   son." 

"Is  he  over  here?" 

"To  see  Christopher — yes." 

"Well,  be  sure  to  remind  the  servants  to  give  him 


MRS.  BLAKE  SPEAKS  HER  MIND       269 

something  to  eat  in  the  kitchen  before  he  goes  back, 
and  I  think,  if  he's  a  decent  young  man,  I  should  like 
to  have  a  little  talk  with  him  about  his  family. 
His  father  used  to  be  one  of  our  most  respectable 
labourers." 

"It  would  tire  you,  I  fear,  mother.  Shall  I  give 
you  your  knitting  now?" 

"You  have  a  most  peculiar  idea  about  me,  my 
child.  I  have  not  yet  reached  my  dotage,  and  I  don't 
think  that  a  little  talk  with  young  Weatherby  could 
possibly  be  much  of  an  ordeal.  Is  he  an  improper 
person?" 

"  No,  no,  of  course  not ;  you  shall  see  him  whenever 
you  like.     I  was  only  thinking  of  you." 

"Well,  I'm  sure  I  am  very  grateful  for  your 
consideration,  my  dear,  but  there  are  times,  occasion- 
ally, you  know,  when  it  is  better  for  one  to  judge 
for  oneself.  I  sometimes  think  that  your  only 
fault,  Cynthia,  is  that  you  are  a  little — just  a  very 
little  bit,  you  understand — inclined  to  manage  things 
too  much.  Your  poor  father  used  to  say  that  a 
domineering  woman  was  like  a  kicking  cow ;  but  this 
doesn't  apply  to  you,  of  course." 

"Shall  I  call  Jim  now,  mother?" 

"You  might  as  well,  dear.  Place  a  chair  for  him, 
a  good  stout  one,  and  be  sure  to  make  him  wipe  his 
feet  before  he  comes  in.  Does  he  appear  to  be 
clean?" 

"Oh,  perfectly. " 

' '  I  remember  his  father  always  was — unusually 
so  for  a  common  labourer.  Those  people  sometimes 
smell  of  cattle,  you  know;  and  besides,  my  nose  has 
grown  extremely  sensitive  in  the  years  since  I  lost  my 


27° 


THE  DELIVERANCE 


eyesight.     Perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  to  hand  me  the 
bottle  of  camphor.    I  can  pretend  I  have  a  headache.  " 

"There's  no  need,  really;  he  isn't  a  labourer  at 
all,  you  know,  and  he  looks  quite  a  gentleman.  He 
ds,  I  believe,  considered  a  very  handsome  young  man.  " 

Mrs.  Blake  waved  toward  the  door  and  the  piece  of 
purple  glass  flashed  in  the  sunlight.  "In  that  case, 
I  might  offer  him  some  sensible  advice,"  she  said. 
"The  Weatherbys,  I  remember,  always  showed  a 
very  proper  respect  for  gentle  people.  I  distinctly 
recall  how  well  Jacob  behaved  when  on  one  occasion 
Micajah  Blair — a  dreadful,  dissolute  character,  though 
of  a  very  old  family  and  an  intimate  friend  of  your 
father's — took  decidedly  too  much  egg-nog  one 
Christmas  when  he  was  visiting  us,  and  insisted 
upon  biting  Jacob's  cheek  because  it  looked  so  like 
a  winesap.  Jacob  had  come  to  see  your  father  on 
business,  and  I  will  say  that  he  displayed  a  great  deal 
of  good  sense  and  dignity ;  he  said  afterward  that  he 
didn't  mind  the  bite  on  his  cheek  at  all,  but  that  it 
pained  him  terribly  to  see  a  Virginia  gentleman 
who  couldn't  balance  a  bowl  of  egg-nog.  Well,  well, 
Micajah  was  certainly  a  rake,  I  fear;  and  for  that 
matter,  so  was  his  father  before  him." 

"Father  had  queer  friends,"  observed  Cynthia 
sadly.  "I  remember  his  telling  me  when  I  was 
a  little  girl  that  he  preferred  that  family  to  any  in 
the  county." 

"Oh,  the  family  was  all  right,  my  dear.  I  never 
heard  a  breath  against  the  women.  Now  you  may 
fetch  Jacob.     Is  that  his  name?" 

"No;  Jim." 

"Dear  me;  that's  very  odd.     He  certainly  should 


MRS.   BLAKE  SPEAKS  HER  MIND       271 

have  been  called  after  his  father.  I  wonder  how 
they  could  have  been  so  thoughtless." 

Cynthia  drew  forward  an  armchair,  stooped  and 
carefully  arranged  the  ottoman,  and  then  went  with 
stern  determination  to  look  for  Jim  Weatherby. 

He  was  sitting  in  the  stable  doorway,  fitting  a 
shoe  on  the  old  mare,  while  Lila  leaned  against  an 
overturned  barrel  in  the  sunshine  outside.  At 
Cynthia's  sudden  appearance  they  both  started  and 
looked  up  in  amazement,  the  words  dying  slowly  on 
their  lips. 

"Why,  whatever  is  the  matter,  Cynthia?"  cried 
Lila,  as  if  in  terror. 

Cynthia  came  forward  until  she  stood  directly 
at  the  mare's  head,  where  she  delivered  her  message 
with  a  gasp: 

"Mother  insists  upon  talking  to  Jim.  There's 
no  help  for  it;  he  must  come. " 

Weatherby  dropped  the  mare's  hoof  and  raised  a 
breathless  question  to  Cynthia's  face,  while  Lila 
asked  quickly: 

"Does  she  know?" 

"Know  what  ?"  demanded  Cynthia,  turning  grimly 
upon  her.  "Of  course  she  knows  that  Jim  is  his 
father's  son." 

The  young  man  rose  and  laid  the  hammer  down 
on  the  overturned  barrel;  then  he  led  the  mare  back 
to  her  stall,  and  coming  out  again,  washed  his  hands 
in  a  tub  of  water  by  the  door. 

"Well,  I'm  ready,"  he  observed  quietly.  "Shall 
I  go  in  alone? " 

"Oh,  we  don't  ask  that  of  you,"  said  Lila,  laugh- 
ing.    "Come;  I'll  take  you." 


272  THE  DELIVERANCE 

She  slipped  her  hand  under  his  arm  and  they  went 
gaily  toward  the  house,  leaving  Cynthia  to  pick  up 
the  horseshoe  nails  lying  loose  upon  the  ground. 

Hearing  the  young  man's  step  on  the  threshold, 
Mrs.  Blake  turned  her  head  with  a  smile  of  pleasant 
condescension  and  stretched  out  her  delicate  yellowed 
hand. 

"This  is  Jim  Weatherby,  mother,"  said  Lila  in  her 
softest  voice.  "Cynthia  says  you  want  to  talk  to 
him." 

"I  know,  my  child;  I  know,"  returned  Mrs.  Blake, 
with  an  animated  gesture.  "Come  in,  Jim,  and 
don't  trouble  to  stand.  Find  him  a  chair,  Lila. 
I  knew  your  father  long  before  you  were  born," 
she  added,  turning  to  the  young  man,  "and  I  knew 
only  good  of  him.  I  suppose  he  has  often  told  you 
of  the  years  he  worked  for  us?  " 

Jim  held  her  hand  for  an  instant  in  his  own,  and 
then,  bending  over,  raised  it  to  his  lips. 

' '  My  father  never  tires  of  telling  us  about  the  old 
times,  and  about  Mr.  Blake  and  yourself,"  he  answered 
in  his  precise  English,  and  with  the  simple  dignity 
which  he  never  lost.  Lila,  watching  him,  prayed 
silently  that  a  miracle  might  open  the  old  lady's 
eyes  and  allow  her  to  see  the  kind,  manly  look  upon 
his  face. 

Mrs.  Blake  nodded  pleasantly,  with  evident  desire 
to  put  him  wholly  at  his  ease. 

"Well,  his  son  is  becoming  quite  courtly,"  she 
responded,  smiling,  "and  I  know  Jacob  is  proud 
of  you — or  he  ought  to  be,  which  amounts  to  the 
same  thing.  There's  nothing  I  like  better  than  to 
see  a  good,  hard-working  family  prosper  in  life  and 


MRS.  BLAKE  SPEAKS  HER  MIND       273 

raise  its  station.  Not  that  I  mean  to  put  ideas  into 
your  head,  of  course,  for  it  is  a  ridiculous  sight  to  see 
a  person  dissatisfied  with  the  position  in  which  the 
good  Lord  has  placed  him.  That  was  what  I  always 
liked  about  your  mother,  and  I  remember  very  well 
her  refusing  to  wear  some  of  my  old  finery  when 
she  was  married,  on  the  ground  that  she  was  a  plain, 
honest  woman,  and  wanted  to  continue  so  when  she 
was    a   wife.     I    hope,  by  the  way,  that  she  is  well." 

"Oh,  quite.  She  does  not  walk  much,  though; 
her  joints  have  been  troubling  her." 

To  Lila's  surprise,  he  was  not  the  least  embarrassed 
by  the  personal  tone  of  the  conversation,  and  his 
sparkling  blue  eyes  held  their  usual  expression  of 
blithe   good-humour. 

"Indeed!"  Mrs.  Blake  pricked  at  the  subject 
in  her  sprightly  way.  "Well,  you  must  persuade 
her  to  use  a  liniment  of  Jamestown  weed  steeped  in 
whisky.  There  is  positively  nothing  like  it  for  rheu- 
matism. Lila,  do  we  still  make  it  for  the  servants? 
If  so,  you  might  send  Sarah  Weatherby  a  bottle." 

"I'll  see  about  it,  mother.  Aren't  you  tired? 
Shall  I  take  Jim  away?" 

"Not  just  yet,  child.  I  am  interested  in  seeing 
what  a  promising  young  man  he  has  become.  How 
old  are  you,  Jim?" 

"Twenty-nine  next  February.  There  are  two 
of  us,  you  know — I've  a  sister  Molly.  She  married 
Frank  Granger  and  moved  ten  miles  away." 

"Ah,  that  brings  me  to  the  very  point  I  was 
driving  at.  Above  all  things,  let  me  caution  you 
most  earnestly  against  the  reckless  marriages  so 
common  in  your  station  of  life.     For  heaven's  sake, 


274  THE  DELIVERANCE 

don't  marry  a  woman  because  she  has  a  pretty  face 
and  you  cherish  an  impracticable  sentiment  for  her. 
If  you  take  my  advice,  you  will  found  your  marriage 
upon  mutual  respect  and  industry.  Select  a  wife 
!-  who  is  not  afraid  of  work,  and  who  expects  no  fol- 
derol  of  romance.  Love-making,  I've  always  main- 
tained, should  be  the  pastime  of  the  leisure  class 
exclusively." 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  work  myself,"  replied  Jim, 
laughing  as  he  looked  boldly  into  the  old  lady's 
sightless  eyes,  "but  I'd  never  stand  it  for  my  wife — 
not  a — a  lick  of  it !" 

"Tut,  tut!     Your  mother  does  it." 

Jim  nodded.  "But  I'm  not  my  father,"  he  mildly 
suggested. 

"Well,  you're  a  fine,  headstrong  young  fool,  and 
I  like  you  all  the  better  for  it,"  declared  Mrs.  Blake. 
"You  may  go  now,  because  I  feel  as  if  I  needed  a 
doze;  but  be  sure  to  come  in  and  see  me  the  next 
time  you're  over  here.  Lila,  put  the  cat  on  my 
knees  and  straighten  my  pillows." 

Lila  lifted  the  cat  from  the  rug  and  placed  it  in 
the  old  lady's  lap;  then,  as  she  arranged  the  soft 
white  pillows,  she  bent  over  suddenly  and  kissed  the 
piece  of  purple  glass  on  the  fragile  hand. 


( 
CHAPTER  IV 

In  Which  Christopher  Hesitates 

Following  his  impulsive  blow  in  defense  of  Will 
Fletcher,  Christopher  experienced,  almost  with  his 
next  breath,  a  reaction  in  his  feeling  for  the  boy; 
and  meeting  him  two  days  later  at  the  door  of  the 
tobacco  barn,  he  fell  at  once  into  a  tone  of  con- 
temptuous raillery. 

"So  you  let  Fred  smash  you  up,  eh?"  he  observed, 
with  a  sneer. 

Will  flushed. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  talk  like  that,"  he  answered; 
"he's  the  biggest  man  about  here  except  you.  By 
the  way,  you're  a  bully  friend  to  a  fellow,  you  know, 
and  it's  not  a  particle  of  use  pretending  you  don't 
like  me,  because  you  can't  help  hitting  back  jolly 
quick  when  anybody  undertakes  to  give  me  a  licking." 

"Why  were  you  such  a  fool  as  to  go  at  him?" 
inquired  Christopher,  glancing  up  at  his  evenly 
hanging  rows  of  tobacco,  and  then  coming  outside 
to  lock  the  door.  "You'll  never  get  a  reputation  as 
a  fighter  if  you  are  always  jumping  on  men  over 
your  own  size.  Now,  next  time  I  should  advise 
you  to  try  your  spirit  on  Sol  Peterkui." 

"Oh,  it  was  all  about  Molly,"  explained  Will 
frankly.     "I  told  Fred  that  he  was  a  big  blackguard 

275 


276  THE  DELIVERANCE 

to  use  the  girl  so,  and  then  he  called  me  a  'white- 
livered  liar.' " 

"I  heard  him,"  remarked  Christopher  quietly. 

"Well,  I  don't  care  what  he  says — he  is  a  black- 
guard. I'm  glad  you  knocked  him  down,  too;  it 
was  no  more  than  he  deserved." 

"I  didn't  do  it  on  Molly  Peterkin's  account,  you 
know.  Tobacco  takes  up  quite  enough  of  my  time 
without  my  entering  the  lists  as  a  champion  of  light 
women.  But  if  you  aren't  man  enough  to  fight  your 
own  battles,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  keep  my  muscle 
in  proper  shape." 

Will  smarted  from  the  words,  and  the  corners  of 
his  mouth  took  a  dogged  droop. 

"I  don't  see  how  you  expect  me  to  be  a  match 
for  Fred  Turner,"  he  returned  angrily. 

"Why,  I  don't  expect  it,"  replied  Christopher 
coolly,  as  he  turned  the  key  in  the  padlock,  drew  it 
out,  and  slipped  it  into  his  pocket.  "I  expect  you 
merely  to  keep  away  from  him,  that's  all." 

Will  stared  at  him  in  perplexity.  "What  a  devil 
of  a  humour  you  are  in  ! "  he  exclaimed. 

"Ami?"  Christopher  broke  into  a  laugh.  "You 
are  accustomed  to  the  sunny  temper  of  your  grand- 
father. How  is  he  to-day  ?  In  his  usual  cheerful 
vein  ? " 

"Oh,  he's  awful,"  answered  the  boy,  relieved  at 
the  change  of  subject.  "If  you  could  only  have 
heard  him  yesterday  !  Somebody  told  him  about 
the  fight  at  the  store,  and,  as  luck  would  have  it, 
he  found  out  that  Molly  Peterkin  was  at  the  bottom 
of  it  all.  When  he  called  me  into  his  room  and 
locked  the  door  I  knew  something  was  up ;  and  sure 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  277 

enough,  we  had  blood  and  thunder  for  two  mortal 
hours.  He  threatened  to  sell  the  horses  and  the 
hounds,  and  to  put  me  at  the  plough,  if  I  ever  so 
much  as  looked  at  the  girl  again — 'gal,'  he  called 
her,  and  a  'brazen  wench.'  That  is  the  way  he 
talks,  you  know." 

"I  know,"  Christopher  nodded  gravely. 

"But  the  funny  part  is,  that  the  thing  that  made 
him  hottest  was  your  knocking  over  Fred  Turner. 
That  he  simply  couldn't  stand.  Why,  he'd  have 
paid    Fred   fifty   dollars   down   to   thrash   me   black 

and  blue,  he  said.     He  called  you Oh,  he  has  a 

great  store  of  pet  names  ! ' ' 

"What?"  asked  Christopher,  for  the  other  caught 
himself  up   suddenly. 

"Nothing  much — he's  always  doing  it,  you  know." 

"You  needn't  trouble  yourself  on  my  account. 
I'm  familiar  with  his  use  of  words." 

"Oh,  he  called  you  'a  crazy  pauper  who  ought  to 
be  in  gaol.'  " 

"  He  did,  did  he  ?  Well,  for  once  in  his  life  he  drew 
it  mild."  Then  he  gave  a  long  whistle  and  kicked 
away  a  rock  in  the  path.  "  '  A  crazy  pauper  who 
ought  to  be  in  gaol.'  I've  a  pretty  good-sized  debt 
to  settle  with  your  grandfather,  when  I  come  to 
think  of  it." 

"Just  suppose  you  were  in  my  place  now,"  insisted 
Will.  "Then  I  reckon  you'd  have  cause  for  swearing, 
sure  enough.  I  tell  you  I  couldn't  get  out  of  that 
room  yesterday  until  I  promised  him  I'd  turn  over 
a  new  leaf — that  I'd  start  in  with  Mr.  Morrison 
to-morrow,  and  dig  away  at  Latin  and  Greek  until  I 
go  to  the  university  next  fall." 


278  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Christopher  turned  quickly. 

"To-morrow?"  he  repeated.  "Why,  that's  the 
day  I  had  planned  we'd  go  hunting.  Make  Morrison's 
Friday." 

The  boy  wavered. 

"Can't  we  go  another  day?"  he  asked.  "He's  so 
awfully  set  on  to-morrow.  I'd  have  to  be  mighty 
sharp  to  fool  him  again." 

"Oh,  well,  but  it's  the  only  day  I've  free. 
There's  a  lot  of  fall  ploughing  to  do;  then  the  apples 
are  ready  to  be  gathered;  and  I  must  take  some 
corn  to  the  mill  before  the  week's  up.  I've  wasted 
too  much  time  with  you  as  it  is.  It's  the  only 
wealth  I  have,  you  see." 

"  Then  I'll  go — I'll  go,"  declared  Will,  jumping  to  a 
decision.  "There'll  be  a  terrific  fuss  if  he  finds  it 
out,  but  perhaps  he  won't.  I'll  bring  my  gun  over 
to  the  barn  to-night,  and  get  Zebbadee  to  meet  us 
with  the  hounds  at  the  bend  in  the  road.  Well,  I 
must  get  back  now.  I' don't  want  him  to  suspect 
I've  seen  you  to-day." 

He  started  off  at  a  rapid  pace,  and  Christopher, 
turning  in  the  other  direction,  went  to  bring  the 
horses  from  the  distant  pasture.  It  was  a  mellow 
afternoon,  and  a  golden  haze  wrapped  the  broad 
meadow,  filled  with  autumn  wild  flowers,  and  the 
little  bricked-up  graveyard  on  the  low,  green  hill. 
As  he  swung  himself  over  the  bars  at  the  end  of  the 
path  he  saw  Lila  and  Jim  Weatherby  gathering 
goldenrod  in  the  center  of  the  field.  When  they 
caught  sight  of  him,  Jim  laid  his  handful  of  blossoms 
in  a  big  basket  on  the  ground  and  came  to  join  him 
on  his  way  to  the  pasture. 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  279 

"They  are  for  Mrs.  Blake's  fireplace,"  he  remarked 
with  a  friendly  smile,  as  he  glanced  back  at  Lila 
standing  knee-deep   amid  the   October  flowers. 

"It's  a  queer  idea,"  observed  Christopher,  finding 
himself  at  a  loss  for  a  reply. 

Jim  strolled  on  leisurely,  snatching  at  the  heads  of 
wild  carrot  as  he  passed. 

"There's  something  I've  wanted  to  tell  you, 
Christopher,"  he  said  after  a  moment,  turning  his 
pleasant,  manly  face  upon  the  other. 

"Is  that  so?"  asked  Christopher,  with  a  sudden 
desire  to  avert  the  impending  responsibility.  "Oh, 
but  I  hardly  think  I'm  the  proper  person, "  he  added, 
laughing. 

Jim  met  his  eyes  squarely. 

"I'm  a  plain  man,"  he  said  slowly,  "and  though 
I'm  not  ashamed  of  it,  I  know,  of  course,  that  my 
family  have  always  been  plain  people.  As  things 
are,  I  had  no  business  on  earth  to  fall  in  love  with 
your  sister,  but  all  the  same  it's  what  I've  gone 
and  done." 

Christopher  nodded  and  walked  on. 

"Well,  I  suppose  it's  what  I  should  have  done, 
too,  in  your  place,"  he  returned  quietly. 

"I've  reproached  myself  for  it  often  enough," 
pursued  Jim;  "but  when  all  is  said,  how  can  a  man 
prevent  a  thing  like  that  ?  I  might  as  well  try  to 
shut  my  eyes  to  the  sun  when  it  is  shining  straight 
on  me.  Why,  everybody  else  seems  dull  and  lifeless 
when  I  look  at  her — and  I  seem  such  a  brute  myself 
that  I  hardly  dare  touch  her  hand.  All  I  ask  is  to 
be  her  servant  until  I  die." 

It     took     courage     to     speak     such     words,     and 


28o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Christopher,  knowing  it,  stopped  midway  of  the  little 
path  and  regarded  Jim  with  the  rare  smile  which 
gave  a  boyish  brightness  to  his  face. 

"By  George,  you  are  a  trump  !"  he  said  heartily. 
"And  as  far  as  that  goes,  you're  good  enough  for 
Lila  or  for  anybody  else.  It  isn't  that,  you  see; 
it's   only -' ' 

"I  know,"  finished  Jim  quietly  and  without 
resentment;  "it's  my  grandfather.  Your  sister, 
Cynthia,  told  me,  and  I  reckon  it's  all  natural,  but 
somehow  I  can't  make  myself  ashamed  of  the  old 
man — nor  is  Lila,  for  that  matter.  He  was  an 
honest,  upright  body  as  ever  you  saw,  and  he  never 
did  a  mean  thing  in  his  life,  though  he  lived  to  be 
almost  ninety." 

"You're  right,"  said  Christopher,  flushing  sud- 
denly; "and  as  far  as  I'm  concerned,  I'd  let  Lila 
marry  you  to-morrow;  but  as  for  mother,  she  would 
simply  never  consent.  The  idea  would  be  impossible 
to  her,  and  we  could  never  explain  things;  you  must 
see  that  yourself." 

"I  see,"  replied  Jim  readily;  "but  the  main  poirt 
is  that  you  yourself  would  have  no  objection  to 
our  marriage,  provided  it  were  possible." 

"Not  a  bit;  not  a  bit." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  Jim  shook  it  warmly 
before  he  picked  up  his  basket  and  went  to  rejoin 
Lila. 

Turning  in  the  path,  Christopher  saw  the  girl, 
who  was  sitting  alone  on  the  lowered  bars,  rise  and 
wave  a  spray  of  goldenrod  above  her  head.  Then, 
as  the  lovers  met,  she  laid  her  hand  upon  Jim's 
arm   and  lifted   her  glowing  face   as  if  to  read  his 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  281 

words  before  he  uttered  them.  Something  in  the 
happy  surrender  of  her  gesture,  or  in  the  brooding 
mystery  of  the  Indian  summer,  when  one  seemed  to 
hear  the  earth  turn  in  the  stillness,  touched  Christo- 
pher with  a  sudden  melancholy,  and  it  appeared  to 
him  when  he  went  on  again  that  a  shadow  had 
fallen  over  the  brightness  of  the  autumn  fields. 
Disturbed  by  the  unrest  which  follows  any  illuminat- 
ing vision  of  ideal  beauty,  he  asked  himself  almost 
angrily,  in  an  effort  to  divert  his  thoughts,  if  it 
were  possible  that  he  was  weakening  in  his  purpose, 
since  he  no  longer  found  the  old  zest  in  his  hatred 
of  Fletcher.  The  deadness  of  his  emotions  had 
then  affected  this  one  also — the  single  feeling  which 
he  had  told  himself  would  be  eternal;  and  the  old 
nervous  thrill,  so  like  the  thrill  of  violent  love,  no 
longer  troubled  him  when  he  chanced  to  meet  his 
enemy  face  to  face.  To-day  he  held  Will  Fletcher 
absolutely  in  his  hand,  he  knew;  in  a  few  years  at 
most  his  debt  to  Fletcher  would  probably  be  can- 
celled; the  man  and  the  boy  would  then  be  held 
together  by  blood  ties  like  two  snarling  hounds  in 
the  leash — and  yet,  when  all  was  said,  what  would 
the  final  outcome  yield  of  satisfaction?  As  he  put 
the  question  he  knew  that  he  could  meet  it  only 
by  evasion,  and  his  inherited  apathy  enfeebled 
him  even  while  he  demanded  an  answer  of  himself. 
As  the  months  went  on,  his  indifference  to  success 
or  failure  pervaded  him  like  a  physical  lethargy, 
and  he  played  his  game  so  recklessly  at  last  that  he 
sometimes  caught  himself  wondering  if  it  were, 
after  all,  worth  a  single  flicker  of  the  candle.  He 
still  saw  Will  Fletcher   daily;  but   when  the   spring 


282  THE  DELIVERANCE 

came  he  ceased  consciously,  rather  from  weariness 
than  from  any  nobler  sentiment,  to  exert  an  influence 
which  he  felt  to  be  harmful  to  the  boy.  For  four 
years  he  had  wrought  tirelessly  to  compass  the  ruin 
of  Fletcher's  ambition;  and  now,  when  he  had  but 
to  stretch  forth  his  arm  for  the  final  blow,  he  ad- 
mitted impatiently  that  what  he  lacked  was  the 
impulsive  energy  the  deed  required. 

He  was  still  in  this  mood  when,  one  afternoon  in 
April,  as  he  was  driving  his  oxen  to  the  store,  he 
met  Fletcher  in  the  road  behind  the  pair  of  bays. 
At  sight  of  him  the  old  man's  temper  slipped  control, 
and  at  the  end  of  a  few  minutes  they  were  quarrelling 
as  to  who  should  be  the  one  to  turn  aside. 

"Git  out  of  the  road,  will  you?"  cried  Fletcher, 
half  rising  from  his  seat  and  jerking  at  the  reins 
until  the  horses  reared.  "Drive  your  brutes  into 
the  bushes  and  let  me  pass!" 

"If  you  think  I'm  going  to  swerve  an  inch  out  of 
my  road  to  oblige  you,  Bill  Fletcher,  you  are  almost 
as  big  a  fool  as  you  are  a  rascal,"  replied  Christopher 
in  a  cool  voice,  as  he  brought  his  team  to  a  halt 
and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  it  with  his  long 
rawhide  whip  in  his  hand. 

As  he  stood  there  he  had  the  appearance  of  taking 
his  time  as  lightly  as  did  the  Olympian  deities;  and 
it  was  clear  that  he  would  wait  patiently  until  the 
sun  set  and  rose  again  rather  than  yield  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  his  right  upon  the  muddy  road.  While 
he  gazed  placidly  over  Fletcher's  head  into  the 
golden  distance,  he  removed  his  big  straw  hat  and 
began  fanning  his  heated  face. 

There  followed  a  noisy  upbraiding  from  Fletcher, 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  283 

which  ended  by  his  driving  madly  into  the  under- 
brush and  almost  overturning  the  heavy  carriage. 
As  he  passed,  he  leaned  from  his  seat  and  slashed 
his  whip  furiously  into  Christopher's  face;  then  he 
drove  on  at  a  wild  pace,  bringing  the  horses  in  a 
shiver,  and  flecked  with  foam,  into  the  gravelled 
drive  before  the  Hall. 

The  bright  flower-beds  and  the  calm  white  pillars 
were  all  in  sunshine,  and  Miss  Saidie,  with  a  little, 
green  watering-pot  in  her  hand,  was  sprinkling  a 
tub  of  crocuses  beside  the  steps. 

"You  look  flustered,  Brother  Bill,"  she  observed, 
as  Fletcher  threw  the  reins  to  a  Negro  servant  and 
came  up  to  where  she  stood. 

"Oh,  I've  just  had  some  words  with  that  darned 
Blake,"  returned  Fletcher,  chewing  the  end  of  his 
mustache,  as  he  did  when  he  was  in  a  rage.  "  I  met 
him  as  I  drove  up  the  road  and  he  had  the  impudence 
to  keep  his  ox-cart  standing  plumb  still  while  I  tore 
through  the  briers.  It's  the  third  time  this  thing 
has  happened,  and  I'll  be  even  with  him  for  it  yet." 

"I'm  sure  he  must  be  a  very  rude  person,"  re- 
marked Miss  Saidie,  pinching  off  a  withered  blossom 
and  putting  it  in  her  pocket  to  keep  from  throwing 
it  on  the  trim  grass.  "For  my  part,  I've  never  been 
able  to  see  what  satisfaction  people  git  out  of  being 
ill-mannered.  It  takes  twice  as  long  as  it  does  to 
be  polite,  and  it's  not  nearly  so  good  for  the  digestion 
afterward." 

Fletcher  listened  to  her  with  a  scowl.  "Well,  if 
you  ever  get  anything  but  curses  from  Christopher 
Blake,  I'd  like  to  hear  of  it,"  he  said,  with  a  coarse 
laugh. 


284  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Why,  he  was  really  quite  civil  to  me  the  other 
day  when  I  passed  him,"  replied  Miss  Saidie,  facing 
Fletcher  with  her  hand  resting  on  the  belt  of  her 
apron.  "I  was  in  the  phaeton,  and  he  got  down  off 
his  wagon  and  picked  up  my  whip.  I  declare,  it 
almost  took  my  breath  away,  but  when  I  thanked 
him  he  raised  his  hat   and  spoke  very  pleasantly." 

"Oh,  you  and  your  everlasting  excuses!"  sneered 
Fletcher,  going  up  the  steps  and  turning  on  the 
porch  to  look  down  upon  her.  "I  tell  you  I've  had 
as  many  of  'em  as  I'm  going  to  stand.  This  is  my 
house,  and  what  I  say  in  it  has  got  to  be  the  last 
word.  If  you  squirt  any  more  of  that  blamed  water 
around  here  the  place  will  rot  to  pieces  under  our 
very  feet." 

Miss  Saidie  placed  her  watering-pot  on  the  step 
and  lifted  to  him  the  look  of  amiable  wonder  which 
he  found  more  irritating  than  a  sharp  retort. 

"I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Susan  Spade  has  been 
waiting  to  speak  to  you,"  she  remarked,  as  if  their 
previous  conversation  had  been  of  the  friendliest 
nature. 

"Oh,  drat  her!     What  does  she  want?" 

"She  wouldn't  tell  me — it  was  for  you  alone,  she 
said.  That  was  a  good  half-hour  ago,  and  she's 
been  waiting  in  your  setting-room  ever  sence.  She's 
such  a  sharp-tongued  woman  I  wonder  how  Tom 
manages  to  put  up  with  her." 

"Well,  if  he  does,  I  won't,"  growled  Fletcher,  as 
he  went  in  to  meet  his  visitor. 

Mrs.  Spade,  wearing  a  severe  manner  and  a  freshly 
starched  purple  calico,  was  sitting  straight  and  stiff 
on   the    edge    of   the    cretonne-covered  lounge,  and 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  285 

as  he  entered  she  rose  to  receive  him  with  a  visible 
unbending  of  her  person.  She  was  a  lank  woman, 
with  a  long,  scrawny  figure  which  appeared  to  have 
run  entirely  to  muscle,  and  very  full  skirts  that 
always  sagged  below  the  belt-line  in  the  back.  Her 
face  was  like  that  of  a  man — large-featured,  impres- 
sive, and  not  without  a  ruddy  masculine  comeliness. 

"It's  my  duty  that's  brought  me,  Mr.  Fletcher," 
she  began,  as  they  shook  hands.  "You  kin  see 
very  well  yo'self  that  it's  not  a  pleasure,  as  far  as 
that  goes,  for  if  it  had  been  I  never  should  have 
come — not  if  I  yearned  and  pined  till  I  was  sore. 
I  never  saw  a  pleasure  in  my  life  that  didn't  lead 
astray,  an'  I've  got  the  eye  of  suspicion  on  the  most 
harmless-lookin'  one  that  goes.  As  I  tell  Tom — 
though  he  won't  believe  it — the  only  way  to  be 
sartain  you're  followin'  yo'  duty  in  this  world  is 
to  find  out  the  thing  you  hate  most  to  do  an'  then 
do  it  with  all  yo'  might.  That  rule  has  taken  me 
through  life,  suh;  it  married  me  to  Tom  Spade,  an' 
it's  brought  me  here  to-day.  'Don't  you  go  up 
thar  blabbin'  on  Will  Fletcher,'  said  Tom,  when 
I  was  tyin'  on  my  bonnet.  'You  needn't  say  one 
word  mo'  about  it,'  was  my  reply.  'I  know  the 
Lord's  way,  an'  I  know  mine.  I've  wrastled  with 
this  in  pra'r,  an'  I  tell  you  when  the  Lord  turns 
anybody's  stomach  so  dead  agin  a  piece  of  business, 
it  means  most  likely  that  it's  the  very  thing  they've 
got  to  swallow  down." 

"Oh,  Will!"  gasped  Fletcher,  dropping  suddenly 
into  his  armchair.  "Please  come  to  the  point  at 
once,  ma'am,  and  let  me  hear  what  the  rascal  has 
done  last." 


286  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"I'mcomin',  suli ;  I'm  comin',"  Mrs.  Spade  hastened 
to  assure  him.  "Yes,  Tom  an'  I  hev  talked  it  all 
down  to  the  very  bone,  but  I  wouldn't  trust  a  man's 
judgment  on  morals  any  mo'  than  I  would  on  matchin' 
t calico.  Right  an'  wrong  don't  look  the  same  to 
'em  by  lamplight  as  they  do  by  day,  an'  if  thar 
conscience  ain't  set  plum'  in  the  pupils  of  thar  eyes, 
I  don't  know  whar  'tis,  that's  sho'.  But,  thank 
heaven,  I  ain't  one  of  those  that's  always  findin'  an 
excuse  for  people — not  even  if  the  backslider  be 
my  own  husband.  Thar's  got  to  be  some  few  folks 
on  the  side  of  decency,  an'  I'm  one  of  'em.  Virtue's 
a  slippery  thing— that's  how  I  look  at  it — an'  if  you 
don't  git  a  good  grip  on  it  an'  watch  it  with  a  mighty 
stern  eye  it's  precious  apt  to  wriggle  through  yo' 
fingers.  I'm  an  honest  woman,  Mr.  Fletcher,  an' 
I  wouldn't  blush  to  own  it  in  the  presence  of  the 
King  of   England " 

"Great  Scott!"  exclaimed  Fletcher,  with  a  brutal 
laugh;  "do  you  mean  to  tell  me  the  precious  young 
fool  has  fallen  in  love  with  you?  " 

"Me,  suh?  If  he  had,  a  broomstick  an'  a  spar' 
rib  or  so  v/ould  have  been  all  you'd  ever  found  of 
him  agin.  I've  never  yit  laid  eyes  on  the  man  I 
couldn't  settle  with  a  single  sweep,  an'  when  a  lone 
woman  comes  to  wantin'  a  protector,  I've  never  seen 
the  husband  that  could  hold  a  candle  to  a  good  stout 
broom.  That's  what  I  said  to  Jinnie  when  she  got 
herself  engaged  to  Fred  Boxley.  '  Married  or  single, ' 
I  said,  'gal,  wife,  or  widow,  a  broom  is  yo'  best 
friend.'" 

Fletcher  twisted  impatiently  in  his  chair. 

"Oh,   for  heaven's  sake,  stop  your  drivelling,"  he 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  287 

blurted  out  at  last,  "and  tell  me  in  plain  language 
what  the  boy  has  done." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  what  he's  done  or  what  he 
hasn't,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Spade,  "but  I've  watched 
him  courtin'  Molly  Peterkin  till  I  told  Tom  this 
thing  had  to  stop  or  I  would  stop  it.  If  thar's  a 
p'isonous  snake  or  lizard  in  this  country,  suh,  it's 
that  tow-headed  huzzy  of  Sol  Peterkin's;  an'  if 
thar's  a  sex  on  this  earth  that  I  ain't  go  no  patience 
with,  it's  the  woman  sex.  A  man  may  slip  an'  slide 
a  little  because  he  was  made  that  way,  but  when  it 
comes  to  a  woman  she's  got  to  w'ar  whalebones  in 
her  clothes  when  I'm  aroun'.  Lord  !  Lord  !  What's 
the  use  of  bein'  honest  if  you  can't  p'int  yo'  finger 
at  them  that  ain't  ?  Virtue  gits  mighty  little  in  the 
way  of  gewgaws  in  this  world,  an'  I  reckon  it's  got 
to  make  things  up  in  the  way  it  feels  when  it  looks 
at  them  that's  gone  astray " 

"Molly  Peterkin!"  gasped  Fletcher,  striking  the 
arm  of  his  chair  a  blow  that  almost  shattered  it. 
"Christopher  Blake  was  bad  enough,  and  now  it's 
Molly  Peterkin !  Out  of  the  frying-pan  right  spang 
into  the  fire.  Oh,  you  did  me  a  good  turn  in  coming, 
Mrs.  Spade.  I'll  forgive  you  the  news  you  brought, 
and  I'll  even  forgive  you  your  blasted  chatter. 
How  long  has  this  thing  been  going  on,  do  you 
know?" 

"That  I  don't,  suh,  that  I  don't;  though  I've  been 
pryin'  an'  peekin'  mighty  close.  All  I  know  is,  that 
every  blessed  evenin'  for  the  last  two  weeks  I've 
seen  'em  walkin'  together  in  the  lane  that  leads  to 
Sol's.  This  here  ain't  goin'  to  keep  up  one  day  mo'; 
that's  what  I  put  my  foot  down  on  yestiddy.     I'd 


288  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stop  it  if  I  didn't  have  nothin'  agin  that  gal  but  the 
colour  of  her  hair.  I  don'  know  how  'tis,  suh,  but 
I've  always  had  the  feelin'  that  thar's  somethin' 
indecent  about  yaller  hair,  an'  if  I'd  been  born  with 
it  I'd  have  stuck  my  head  into  a  bowl  of  pitch  befo' 
I'd  have  gone  flauntin'  those  corn-tassels  in  the  eyes 
of  every  man  I  met.  Thar's  nothin'  in  the  looks  of 
me  that's  goin'  to  make  a  man  regret  he's  got  a  wife 
if  I  can  help  it;  an'  mark  my  word,  Mr.  Fletcher,  if 
they  had  dyed  Molly  Peterkin's  hair  black  she  might 
have  been  a  self-respectin'  woman  an'  a  hater  of 
men  this  very  day.  A  light  character  an'  a  light 
head  go  precious  well  together,  an'  when  you  set 
one  a  good  sober  colour  the  other's  pretty  apt  to 
follow. " 

Fletcher  rose  from  his  chair  and  stood  gripping 
the  table  hard. 

"Have  you  any  reason  to  think — does  it  look 
likely — that  young  Blake  has  had  a  hand  in  this?" 
he   asked. 

"Who?  Mr.  Christopher?  Why,  I  don't  believe 
he  could  tell  a  petticoat  from  a  pair  of  breeches  to 
save  his  soul.  He  ain't  got  no  fancy  for  corn -tassels 
and  blue  ribbons,  I  kin  tell  you  that.  It's  good 
honest  women  that  are  the  mothers  of  families  that 
he  takes  to,  an'  even  then  it  ain't  no  mo'  than  '  How 
are  you,  Mrs.  Spade?     A  fine  mornin'  !' 

"Well,  thar's  one  thing  you  may  be  sartain  of," 
returned  Fletcher,  breaking  in  upon  her,  "and  that 
is  that  this  whole  business  is  as  good  as  settled.  I 
leave  here  with  the  boy  to-morrow  morning  at 
sunrise,  and  he  doesn't  set  foot  agin  in  this  county 
until    he's    gone    straight    through    the    university. 


CHRISTOPHER  HESITATES  289 

I'll    drag   him   clean   across   the  broad  ocean  before 
he  shall  do  it. " 

Then,  as  Mrs.  Spade  took  a  noisy  departure,  he 
stood,  without  listening  to  her,  gazing  morosely- 
down  upon  the  pattern  of  the  carpet. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Happiness  of  Tucker 

Early  in  the  following  November,  Jim  Weatherby, 
returning  from  the  cross-roads  one  rainy  afternoon, 
brought  Christopher  a  long,  wailing  letter  from  Will. 

"Oh,  I've  had  to  walk  a  chalk-line,  sure  enough," 
he  wrote,  "since  that  awful  day  we  left  home  in  a 
pouring  rain,  with  grandpa  wearing  a  whole  thunder- 
storm on  his  forehead.  It  has  been  cram,  cram, 
cram  ever  since,  I  can  tell  you,  and  here  I  am  now, 
just  started  at  the  university,  with  my  head  still 
buzzing  with  the  noise  of  those  confounded  ancients. 
If  grandpa  hadn't  gone  when  he  did,  I  declare  I 
believe  he  would  have  ended  by  driving  me  clean 
crazy.  Since  he  left  I've  had  time  to  take  a  look 
about  me,  and  I  find  there's  a  good  deal  of  fun  to 
be  got  here,  after  all.  How  I'll  manage  to  mix  it 
in  with  Greek  I  don't  see,  but  luck's  with  me,  you 
know — I've  found  that  out — so  I  shan't  bother. 

"By  the  way,  I  wish  you  would  make  Molly 
Peterkin  understand  how  it  was  I  came  away  so 
hastily.  Tell  her  I  haven't  forgotten  her,  and  give 
her  the  little  turquoise  pin  I'm  sending.  It  just 
matches  her  eyes.  Be  sure  to  let  me  know  if  she's 
as  pretty  as  ever." 

291 


292  THE  DELIVERANCE 

By  the  next  mail  the  turquoise  brooch  arrived, 
and  Christopher,  putting  it  in  his  pocket,  went  over 
to  Sol  Peterkin's  to  bear  the  message  to  the  girl. 
As  it  happened,  she  was  swinging  on  the  little  sagging 
gate  when  he  came  up  the  lane,  and  at  sight  of  him 
her  eyebrows  shot  up  under  her  flaxen  curls,  which 
hung  low  upon  her  forehead.  She  was  a  pretty, 
soulless  little  animal,  coloured  like  peach -blossoms, 
and  with  a  great  deal  of  that  soft  insipidity  which 
is  usually  found  in  a  boy's  ideal  of  maiden  innocence. 

"Why,  I  couldn't  believe  my  eyes  when  I  first 
saw  you,"  she  said,  arranging  her  curls  over  her  left 
shoulder  with  a  conscious  simper. 

The  old  Blake  gallantry  rose  to  meet  her  challenging 
eyes,  and  he  regarded  her  smilingly  a  moment  before 
he  answered. 

"Well,  I  could  hardly  believe  mine,  you  know," 
he  responded  carelessly.  "I  thought  for  an  instant 
that  a  big  butterfly  had  alighted  on  the  gate.  " 

She  pouted  prettily. 

"Won't  you  come  in?"  she  asked  after  a  moment, 
with  an  embarrassed  air,  as  she  remembered  that  he 
was  one  of  the  "real  Blakes"  for  whom  her  father 
used  to  work. 

A  light  retort  was  on  his  lips,  but  while  he  looked 
at  her  a  little  weary  frown  darkened  her  shallow 
eyes,  and  with  the  peculiar  sympathy  for  all  those 
oppressed  by  man  or  nature  which  was  but  one  ex- 
pression of  his  many-sided  temperament  he  quickly 
changed  the  tone  of  his  reply.  At  the  instant  it 
seemed  to  him  that  Molly  Peterkin  and  himself  stood 
together  defrauded  of  their  rightful  heritage  of  life; 
and  as  his  thought  broadened  he  felt  suddenly  the 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  293 

pathos  of  her  forlorn  little  figure,  of  her  foolish  blue 
eyes,  of  her  trivial  vanities,  of  her  girlish  beauty, 
soiled  and  worn  by  common  handling.  A  look  very 
like  compassion  was  in  his  face,  and  the  girl,  seeing 
it,  reddened  angrily  and  kicked  at  a  loose  pebble  in 
the  path.  When  he  went  away  a  moment  later 
he  left  a  careless  message  for  Sol  about  the  tobacco 
crop,  and  the  little  white  box  containing  the  turquoise 
brooch  was  still  in  his  pocket. 

That  afternoon  the  trinket  went  back  to  Will  with 
a  curt  letter.  "If  you  take  my  advice,  you'll  leave 
Molly  Peterkin  alone,"  he  wrote  in  his  big,  unformed 
hand,  "for  as  far  as  I  can  see  you  are  too  good  a  match 
to  get  on  well  together.  She's  a  fool,  you  know,  and 
from  the  way  you're  going  on  just  now  it  looks  very 
much  as  if  you  were  one  also.  At  any  rate,  I'm  not  your 
man  for  gallantries.  I'd  rather  hunt  hares  than 
women,   any  day — and  game's  plentiful  just  now. " 

It  was  a  long  winter  that  year,  and  for  the  first 
time  since  her  terrible  illness  Mrs.  Blake  was  forced 
to  keep  her  bed  during  a  bitter  spell  of  weather, 
when  the  raw  winds  whistled  around  the  little  frame 
house,  entering  the  cracks  at  the  doors  and  the 
loosened  sashes  of  the  windows.  Cynthia  grew 
drawn  and  pinched  with  a  sickly,  frost-bitten  look,  and 
even  Lila's  rare  bloom  drooped  for  a  while  like  that  of  a 
delicate  plant  starving  for  the  sunshine.  Christopher, 
who,  as  usual,  was  belated  in  his  winter's  work,  was 
kept  busy  hauling  and  chopping  wood,  shovelling  the 
snow  away  from  the  porch  and  the  paths  that  led  to 
the  well,  the  stable,  and  the  barn.  Once  a  day,  most 
often  after  breakfast,  Jim  Weatherby  appeared, 
smiling  gaily  beneath   his  powdering  of  snow;    and 


294  THE  DELIVERANCE 

sometimes,  in  defiance  of  Cynthia,  he  would  take 
Lila  for  a  sleigh-ride,  from  which  she  would  return 
blossoming  like  a  rose. 

Mrs.  Blake,  from  her  tester  bed,  complained 
bitterly  of  the  cold,  and  drew  from  the  increasing 
severity  of  the  winters,  which  she  declared  became 
'more  unbearable  each  year,  warrant  for  her  belief 
in  the  gradual  "decline  of  the  world  as  a  dwelling- 
place." 

"You  may  say  what  you  please,  Tucker,"  she 
remarked  one  morning  when  she  had  awakened 
with  an  appetite  to  find  that  her  eggs  had  frozen  in 
the  kitchen,  "but  you  can  hardly  be  so  barefaced  as 
to  compliment  this  weather.  I'm  sure  I  never  felt 
anything  like  it  when  I  was  young." 

"Well,  at  least  I  have  a  roof  over  my  head  now, 
and  I  didn't  when  I  marched  to  Romney  with  old 
Stonewall, "  remarked  Tucker  from  the  hearth,  where 
he  was  roasting  an  apple  before  the  big  logs.  "  Many's 
the  morning  I  waked  then  with  the  snow  frozen  stiff 
all  over  me,  and  I  had  to  crack  through  it  before 
I  could  get  up." 

The  old  lady  made  a  peevish  gesture. 

"It  may  sound  ungrateful,"  she  returned,  "but 
I'm  sometimes  tempted  to  wish  that  you  had  never 
marched  to  Romney,  or  that  General  Jackson  had 
been  considerate  enough  to  choose  a  milder  spell. 
I  really  believe  when  you  come  to  die  you  will  console 
yourself  with  the  recollection  of  something  worse 
that  happened  in  the  war." 

Tucker  laughed  softly  to  himself  as  he  watched 
the  apple  revolving  in  the  red  heat  on  its  bit  of  string. 

"Well,  I'm  not  sure  that  I  shan't,  Lucy,1"  he  said. 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  295 

"Habit's  mighty  strong,  you  know,  and  when  you 
come  to  think  of  it  there's  some  comfort  in  knowing 
that  you'll  never  have  to  face  the  worst  again.  A 
man  doesn't  duck  his  head  at  the  future  when  he's 
learned  that,  let  be  what  will;  it  can't  be  so  bad  as 
the  thing  he's  gone  through  with  and  yet  come  out 
on  top.  It  gives  him  a  pretty  good  feeling,  after 
all,  to  know  that  he  hasn't  funked  the  hardest  knock 
that  life  could  give.  Well,  my  birds  are  hungry, 
I  reckon,  and  I'll  hobble  out  and  feed  'em  while 
this  apple  is  roasting  to  the  core. " 

Raising  himself  with  difficulty,  he  got  upon  his 
crutches  and  went  to  scatter  his  crumbs  from  the 
kitchen  window. 

By  the  first  of  March  the  thaw  came,  and  the  snow 
melted  in  a  day  beneath  the  lavish  spring  sunshine. 
It  was  a  week  later  that  Christopher,  coming  from 
the  woods  at  midday,  saw  Tucker  sitting  on  his  old 
bench  by  the  damask  rose-bush,  in  which  the  sap  was 
just  beginning  to  swell.  The  sun  shone  full  on  the 
dead  grass,  and  the  old  soldier,  with  his  chin  resting 
in  the  crook  of  his  crutch,  was  gazing  straight  down 
upon  the  earth.  The  expression  of  his  large,  kindly 
face  was  so  radiant  with  enjoyment  that  Christopher 
quickened  his  steps  and  slapped  him  affectionately 
upon  the  shoulder. 

"Is  Fletcher  dead,  Uncle  Tucker?"  he  inquired, 
laughing. 

"No,  no;  nobody's  dead  that  I've  heard  of," 
responded  Tucker  in  his  cheerful  voice;  "but  some- 
thing better  than  Bill  Fletcher's  death  has  happened, 
I  can  tell  you.  Why,  I'd  been  sitting  out  here  an 
hour  or  more,  longing  for  the  spring  to  come,  when 


296  THE  DELIVERANCE 

suddenly  I  looked  down  and  there  was  the  first 
dandelion — a  regular  miracle — blooming  in  the  mould 
about  that  old  rose-bush." 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged!"  exclaimed  Christopher, 
.aghast.  "Mark  my  words,  you'll  be  in  an  asylum 
yet. " 

The  other  chuckled  softly. 

"When  you  put  me  there  you'll  shut  up  the  only 
wise  man  in  the  county,"  he  returned.  "If  your 
sanity  doesn't  make  you  happy,  I  can  tell  you  it's 
worth  a  great  deal  less  than  my  craziness.  Look 
at  that  dandelion,  now — it  has  filled  two  hours  chock 
full  of  thought  and  colour  for  me  when  I  might  have 
been  puling  indoors  and  nagging  at  God  Almighty 
about  trifles.  The  time  has  been  when  I'd  have 
walked  right  over  that  little  flower  and  not  seen  it, 
and  now  it  grows  yellower  each  minute  that  I  look 
at  it,  and  each  minute  I  see  it  better  than  I  did  the 
one  before.  There's  nothing  in  life,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it — not  Columbus  setting  out  to  sea  nor 
Napoleon  starting  on  a  march — more  wonderful 
than  that  brave  little  blossom  putting  up  the  first 
of  all  through  the  earth.  " 

"I  can't  see  anything  in  a  dandelion  but  a 
nuisance,"  observed  Christopher,  sitting  down  on  the 
bench  and  baring  his  head  to  the  sunshine;  "but  you 
do  manage  to  get  interest  out  of  life,  that's  certain.  " 

"Interest!  Good  Lord!"  exclaimed  Tucker.  "If 
a  man  can't  find  something  to  interest  him  in  a  world 
like  this,  he  must  be  a  dull  fellow  or  else  have  a 
serious  trouble  of  the  liver.  So  long  as  I  have  my 
eyes,  and  there's  a  different  sky  over  my  head  each 
day,   and  earth,   and  trees,   and  flowers  all  around 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  297 

me,  I  don't  reckon  I'll  begin  to  whistle  to  boredom. 
If  I  were  like  Lucy,  now,  I  sometimes  think  things 
would  be  up  with  me,  and  yet  Lucy  is  one  of  the 
very  happiest  women  I've  ever  known.  Her  brain 
is  so  filled  with  pleasant  memories  that  it's  never 
empty  for  an  instant." 

Christopher's  face  softened,  as  it  always  did  at 
an  allusion  to  his  mother's  blindness. 

"You're  right,"  he  said;  "she  is  happy." 

"To  be  sure,  she's  had  her  life,"  pursued  Tucker, 
without  noticing  him.  "She's  been  a  beauty,  a 
belle,  a  sweetheart,  a  wife,  and  a  mother — to  say 
nothing  of  a  very  spoiled  old  woman ;  but  all  the 
same,  I  don't  think  I  have  her  magnificent  patience. 
Oh,  I  couldn't  sit  in  the  midst  of  all  this  and  not 
have  eyes  to  see. " 

With  a  careless  smile  Christopher  glanced  about 
him — at  the  bright  blue  sky  seen  through  the  bare 
trees,  at  the  dried  carrot  flowers  in  the  old  field 
across  the  road,  at  the  great  pine  growing  on  the 
little  knoll. 

"I  hardly  think  she  misses  much,"  he  said,  and 
added  after  a  moment,  "Do  you  know  I'd  give 
twenty — no  forty,  fifty  years  of  this  for  a  single 
year  of  the  big  noisy  world  over  there.  I'm  dog- 
tired  of  stagnation." 

"Well,  it's  natural,"  admitted  Tucker  gently. 
"At  your  age  I  doubtless  felt  the  same.  The  young 
want  action,  and  they  ought  to  have  it,  because  it 
makes  the  quiet  of  middle  age  seem  all  the  sweeter. 
You've  missed  your  duels  and  your  flirtations  and 
your  pomades,  and  you've  been  put  into  breeches  and 
into  philosophy  at  the  same  time.     Why,  one  might 


298  THE  DELIVERANCE 

as  well  stick  a  brier  pipe  in  the  mouth  of  a  boy  who 
is  crying  for  his  first  gun  and  tell  him  to  go  sit  in  the 
chimney-corner  and  be  happy.  When  I  was  twenty- 
five  I  travelled  all  the  way  to  New  York  for  the 
latest  Parisian  waistcoat,  but  I  can't  remember  that 
I  ever  strolled  round  the  corner  to  see  a  peach-tree 
in  full  bloom.  I'm  a  lot  happier  now,  heaven  knows, 
in  my  homespun  coat,  than  I  was  then  in  that  waist- 
coat of  satin  brocade,  so  I  sometimes  catch  myself 
wishing  that  I  could  see  again  the  people  I  knew  then 
— the  men  I  quarrelled  with  and  the  women  I  kissed. 
I'd  like  to  apologise  for  the  young  fool  of  thirty 
years  ago. " 

Christopher  stirred  restlessly,  and,  clasping  his 
hands  behind  his  head,  stared  at  a  small  white  cloud 
drifting  slowly  above  the  great  pine. 

"Well,  it's  the  fool  part  I  envy  you,  all  the  same, " 
he    remarked. 

"You're  welcome  to  it,  my  boy, "  answered  Tucker ; 
then  he  paused  abruptly  and  bent  his  ear.  "Ah, 
there's  the  bluebird !  Do  you  hear  him  whistling 
in  the  meadow  ?  God  bless  him ;  he's  a  hearty  fellow 
and  has  spring  in  his  throat." 

"I  passed  one  coming  up,"  said  Christopher. 

"The  same,  I  reckon.  He'll  be  paying  me  a  visit 
soon,  and  I've  got  my  crumbs  ready."  He  smiled 
brightly  and  then  sat  with  his  chin  on  his  crutch, 
looking  steadily  across  the  road.  "You  haven't 
had  your  chance,  my  boy,"  he  resumed  presently; 
"and  a  man  ought  to  have  several  chances  to  look 
round  him  in  this  world,  for  otherwise  the  things  he 
misses  will  always  seem  to  him  the  only  things  worth 
having.     I'm  not  much  of  a  fellow  to  preach,  you'll 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  299 

say — a  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  of  flesh  that 
can't  dress  itself  nor  hobble  about  without  crutches 
that  are  strapped  on — but  if  it's  the  last  word  I 
speak  I  wouldn't  change  a  day  in  my  long  life,  and 
if  it  came  to  going  over  it  again  I'd  trust  it  all  in 
the  Lord's  hands  and  start  blindfolded.  And  yet, 
when  I  look  back  upon  it  now,  I  see  that.it  wasn't 
much  of  a  life  as  lives  go,  and  the  two  things  I  wanted 
most  in  it  I  never,  got." 

Christopher  turned  quickly  with  a  question. 

"Oh,  you  think  I  have  always  been  a  contented, 
prosaic  chap,"  pursued  Tucker,  smiling,  "but  you 
were  never  more  mistaken  since  you  were  born.  Twice 
in  my  life  I  came  mighty  near  blowing  out  my  brains 
— once  when  I  found  that  I  couldn't  go  to  Paris  and 
be  an  artist,  and  the  second  time  when  I  couldn't 
get  the  woman  I  wanted  for  my  wife.  I  wasn't 
cut  out  for  a  farmer,  you  see,  and  I  had  always  meant 
from  the  time  I  was  a  little  boy  to  go  abroad  and 
study  painting.  I'd  set  my  heart  on  it,  as  people 
say,  but  when  the  time  came  my  father  died  and  I 
had  to  stay  at  home  to  square  his  debts  and  run  the 
place.  For  a  single  night  I  was  as  clean  crazy_  as  a 
man  ever  was.  It  meant  the  sacrifice  of  my  career, 
you  know,  and  a  career  seemed  a  much  bigger  thing 
to  me  then  than  it  does  to-day." 

"I  never  heard  that,"  said  Christopher,  lowering 
his  voice. 

"There's  a  lot  we  don't  know  even  about  the 
people  we  live  in  a  little  house  with.  You  never 
heard,  either,  I  dare  say,  that  I  was  so  madly  in  love 
once  that  when  the  woman  threw  me  over  for  a  better 
man  I  shut  myself  up  in  a  cabin  in  the  woods  and 


300  THE  DELIVERANCE 

did  not  speak  to  a  human  being  for  six  months.  I 
was  a  rare  devil,  sure  enough,  though  you'd  never 
believe  it  to  see  me  now.  It  took  two  blows  like 
that,  a  four  years'  war,  and  the  surgeon's  operating 
table  to  teach  me  how  to  be  happy." 

"It  was  Miss  Matoaca  Boiling,  I  suppose?" 
suggested  Christopher,  with  a  mild  curiosity. 

The  old  soldier  broke  into  his  soft,  full  laugh. 

"Matoaca!  Bless  your  soul,  no.  But  to  think 
that  Lucy  should  have  kept  a  secret  for  more  than 
thirty  years !  Never  talk  to  me  again  about  a 
woman's  letting  anything  out.  If  she's  got  a  secret 
that  it  mortifies  her  to  tell  it  will  be  buried  in  the 
grave  with  her,  and  most  likely  it  will  never  see  the 
light  at  Judgment  Day.  Lucy  was  always  ashamed 
of  my  being  jilted,  you  know." 

"It's  a  new  story  then,  is  it?" 

"Oh,  it's  as  old  as  the  hills  by  now.  What's  the 
funny  part,  though,  is  that  Lucy  has  always  tried 
to  persuade  herself  it  was  really  Matoaca  I  cared 
for.  You  know,  I  sometimes  think  that  a  woman 
can  convince  herself  that  black  is  white  if  she  only 
keeps  trying  hard  enough — and  it's  marvellous  that 
she  never  sees  the  difference  between  wanting  to 
believe  a  thing  and  believing  it  in  earnest.  Now, 
if  Matoaca  had  been  the  last  woman  on  this  earth, 
and  I  the  last  man,  I  could  never  have  fallen  in  love 
with  her,  though  I  may  as  well  confess  that  I  had 
my  share  of  fancies  when  I  was  young.  It's  no  use 
attempting  to  explain  a  man's  feelings,  of  course. 
Matoaca  was  almost  as  great  a  belle  as  Lucy,  and 
she  was  the  handsomest  creature  you  ever  laid  eyes 
on — one    of    those    bier,  managing:   women   who    are 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  301 

forever  improving  things  around  them.  Why,  I 
don't  believe  she  could  stay  two  seconds  in  a  man's 
arms  without  improving  the  set  of  his  cravat. 
Some  men  like  that  kind  of  thing,  but  I  never  did, 
and  I  often  think  the  reason  I  went  so  mad  about 
the  other  woman  was  that  she  came  restful  after 
Matoaca.  She  was  the  comforting  kind,  who,  you 
might  be  sure,  always  saw  you  at  your  best;  and  no 
matter  the  mood  you  were  in,  she  never  wanted  to 
pat  and  pull  you  into  shape.  Lucy  always  said  she 
couldn't  hold  a  candle  to  Matoaca  in  looks,  and  I 
suppose  she  was  right;  but,  pretty  or  plain,  that 
girl  had  something  about  her  that  went  straight 
to  my  heart  more  than  thirty  years  ago  and  stays 
there  still.  Strange  to  say,  I've  tried  to  believe  that 
it  was  half  compassion,  for  she  always  reminded  me 
of  a  little  wild  bird  that  somebody  had  caught  and 
shut  up  in  a  cage,  and  it  used  to  seem  to  me  some- 
times that  I  could  almost  hear  the  fluttering  of  her 
soul.  Well,  whatever  it  was,  the  feeling  was  the 
sort  that  is  most  worth  while,  though  she  didn't 
think  so,  of  course,  and  broke  her  great  heart  over 
another  man.  She  married  him  and  had  six  children 
and  died  a  few  years  ago.  He  was  a  fortunate 
fellow,  I  suppose,  and  yet  I  can't  help  fancying  that 
I've  had  the  better  part  and  the  Lord  was  right. 
She  was  not  happy,  they  said,  and  he  knew  it,  and 
yet  had  to  face  those  eyes  of  hers  every  day.  It 
was  like  many  other  marriages,  I  reckon;  he  got  used 
to  her  body  and  never  caught  so  much  as  a  single 
glimpse  of  her  soul.  Then  she  faded  away  and  died 
to  him,  but  to  me  she's  just  the  same  as  when  I  first 
saw  her,  and  I  still  believe  that  if  she  could  come 


3o2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

here  and  sit  on  this  old  bench  I  should  be  perfectly 
happy.  It's  a  lucky  man,  I  tell  you,  who  can  keep 
the  same  desire  for  more  than  thirty  years.  " 

He  shook  his  head  slowly,  smiling  as  he  listened 
to  the  bluebird  singing  in  the  road.  "And  now  I'll 
be  fetching  my  crumbs,"  he  added,  struggling  to 
his    crutches. 

When  he  had  helped  Tucker  to  the  house, 
Christopher  came  back  and  sat  down  again  on  the 
bench,  closing  his  eyes  to  the  sunshine,  the  spring 
sky,  and  the  dandelion  blooming  in  the  mould.  He 
was  very  tired,  and  his  muscles  ached  from  the  strain 
of  heavy  labour,  yet  as  he  lingered  there  in  the  warm 
wind  it  seemed  to  him  that  action  was  the  one  thing 
he  desired.  The  restless  season  worked  in  his  blood, 
and  he  felt  the  stir  of  old  impulses  that  had  revived 
each  year  with  the  quickening  sap  since  the  first 
pilgrimage  man  made  on  earth.  He  wanted  to  be 
up  and  away  while  he  was  still  young,  and  his  heart 
beat  high,  and  at  the  moment  he  would  have  found 
positive  delight  in  any  convulsion  of  the  natural 
order,  in  any  excuse  for  a  headlong  and  impetuous 
plunge  into  life. 

He  heard  the  door  open  again,  and  Tucker  shuffled 
out  into  the  path  and  began  scattering  his  crumbs 
upon  the  gravel.  When  Christopher  passed  a 
moment  later,  on  his  way  to  the  house,  the  old 
soldier  was  merrily  whistling  an  invitation  to  a 
glimpse  of  blue  in  a  tree-top  by  the  road. 

The  spring  dragged  slowly,  and  with  June  came 
the  transplanting  of  the  young  tobacco.  This  was 
the  busiest  season  of  the  year  with  Christopher, 
and  so  engrossed  was  he  in  his  work  that  for  a  week 


THE  HAPPINESS  OF  TUCKER  303 

at  the  end  of  the  month  he  did  not  go  down  for  the 
county  news  at  Tom  Spade's  store.  Fletcher  was 
at  home,  he  knew,  but  he  had  heard  nothing  of 
Will,  and  it  was  through  the  storekeeper  at  last 
that  he  learned  definitely  of  the  boy's  withdrawal 
from  the  university.  Returning  from  the  field  one 
afternoon  at  sunset,  he  saw  Tom  sitting  beside  Tucker 
in  the  yard,  and  in  response  to  a  gesture  he  crossed 
the  grass  and  stopped  beside  the  long  pine  bench. 

"I  say,  Mr.  Christopher,  I've  brought  you  a  bit 
of  news,"  called  the  storekeeper  at  the  young  man's 
approach. 

"Well,  let's  have  it,"  returned  Christopher, 
laughing.  "If  you're  going  to  tell  me  that  Uncle 
Tucker  has  discovered  a  rare  weed,  though,  I  warn 
you  that  I  can't  support  it." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  in  this,  thank  heaven,"  protested 
Tucker;  "but  to  tell  the  truth,  I'm  downright  sorry 
for  the  boy — Fletcher  or  no  Fletcher." 

"Ah,"  said  Christopher  under  his  breath,  "so  it's 
Will   Fletcher?" 

"He's  in  a  jolly  scrape  this  time,  an'  no  mistake," 
replied  Tom.  "He's  been  leadin'  a  wild  life  at  the 
university,  it  seems,  an'  to-day  Fletcher  got  a 
telegram  saying  that  the  boy  had  been  caught 
cheatin'  in  his  examinations.  The  old  man  left 
on  the  next  train,  as  mad  as  a  hornet,  I  can  tell 
you.  He  swore  he'd  bring  the  young  scamp  back 
an'  put  him  to  the  plough.  Well,  well,  thar  are 
worse  dangers  than  a  pretty  gal,  though  Susan  won't 
believe   it." 

"Then  he'll  bring  him  home?"  asked  Christopher, 
blinking  in  the  sunlight.     At  the  instant  it  seemed 


304  THE  DELIVERANCE 

to  him  that  sky  and  field  whirled  rapidly  before  his 
eyes,  and  a  strange  noise  started  in  his  ears  which 
he  found  presently  to  be  the  throbbing  of  his 
arteries. 

"Oh,  he's  been  given  a  hard  push  down  the  wrong 
road,"  answered  Tom,  "an'  it's  more  than  likely  he'll 
never  pull  up  till  he  gits  clean  to  the  bottom." 


CHAPTER   VI 

The    Wages    of    Folly 

Two  days  later  Fletcher's  big  new  carriage  crawled 
over  the  muddy  road,  and  Christopher,  looking  up 
from  his  work  in  the  field,  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
sullen  face  Will  turned  on  the  familiar  landscape. 
The  younger  Fletcher  had  come  home  evidently 
nursing  a  grievance  at  his  heart;  his  eyes  held  a 
look  of  dogged  resentment,  and  the  hand  in  which  he 
grasped  the  end  of  the  linen  dust-robe  was  closed  in 
an  almost  convulsive  grip.  When  he  met  Christo- 
pher's gaze  he  glanced  angrily  away  without  speaking, 
and  then  finding  himself  face  to  face  with  his  grand- 
father's scowl  he  jerked  impatiently  in  the  opposite 
direction.  It  was  clear  that  the  tussle  of  wills  had 
as  yet  wrung  only  an  enforced  submission  from  the 
younger  man. 

Lifting  his  head,  Christopher  stood  idly  watching 
the  carriage  until  it  disappeared  between  the  rows 
of  flowering  chestnuts;  then,  returning  in  a  half- 
hearted fashion  to  his  work,  he  found  himself  wonder- 
ing curiously  if  Fletcher's  wrath  and  Will's  indiscre- 
tions were  really  so  great  as  public  rumour  might 
lead  one  to  suppose. 

An  answer  to  his  question  came  the  next  evening, 
when  he  heard  a  light,  familiar  whistle  outside  the 

305 


3o6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stable  where  he  was  at  work,  and  a  moment  after- 
ward Will  appeared  in  the  shadow  of  the  doorway. 

"So  it  wasn't  a  cut,  after  all?"  said  Christopher 
with  a  laugh,  as  he  held  out  his  hand. 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  know  what  it  was,"  was  Will's 
response,  turning  away  after  a  limp  grasp  and  seating 
himself  upon  the  big  box  in  the  corner.  "To  tell 
the  truth,  grandpa  has  put  me  into  such  a  fluster 
that  I  hardly  know  my  head  from  my  heels.  There's 
one  thing  certain,  though;  if  he  doesn't  take  his  eye 
off  me  for  a  breathing  space  he'll  send  me  to  the 
dogs  before  he  knows  it." 

His  face  had  lost  its  boyish  freshness  of  complexion 
and  his  weak  mouth  had  settled  into  lines  of  sullen 
discontent.  Even  his  dress  displayed  the  carelessness 
which  is  one  of  the  outward  marks  of  a  disordered 
mind,  and  his  bright  blue  tie  was  loosely  knotted 
in  unequal  lengths. 

"What's  the  trouble  now  ? "  demanded  Christopher, 
coming  from  the  stall  and  hanging  his  lantern  from 
a  nail  beside  the  ladder,  where  the  light  fell  full  on 
Will's  face.  "Out  with  it  and  have  done.  I  thought 
yesterday  that  you  had  been  driving  a  hard  bargain 
with  the  old  man  on  my  account." 

"Oh,  it's  not  you  this  time,  thank  heaven," 
returned  Will.  "It's  all  about  that  confounded 
scrape  I  got  into  at  the  university.  I  told  him 
it  would  mean  trouble  if  he  sent  me  there,  but  he 
would  do  it  whether  or  no.  He  dragged  me  away 
from  here,  you  remember,  and  had  me  digging  at 
my  books  with  a  scatter-brained  tutor  for  a  good 
six  months;  then  when  I  knew  just  about  enough  to 
start    at   the  university  he   hauled  me  there   with 


THE  WAGES  OF  FOLLY  307 

his  own  hands  and  kept  watch  over  me  for  several 
weeks.  I'm  quick  at  most  things  like  that,  so  after 
he  went  away  I  thought  I'd  have  a  little  fun  and 
trust  luck  to  make  it  up  to  me  at  the  end — but 
it  all  went  against  me  somehow,  and  then  they 
stirred  up  that  blamed  rumpus  about  the  ex- 
aminations." 

Yawning  more  in  disgust  than  in  drowsiness,  he 
struck  a  match  on  the  edge  of  the  box  and  lighted 
a  cigarette.  His  flippant  manner  was  touched  with 
the  conscious  resentment  which  still  lingered  in  his 
eyes,  and  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  account 
he  betrayed  no  hint  of  a  regret  for  his  own  shabby 
part  in  the  affair.  When  it  was  not  possible  to 
rest  the  blame  upon  his  grandfather,  he  merely 
shrugged  his  shoulders  and  lightly  tossed  the  responsi- 
bility to  fate. 

"This  is  one  of  the  things  I  daren't  do  at  the  house," 
he  remarked  after  a  moment,  inhaling  a  cloud  of 
smoke  and  blowing  it  in  spirals  through  his  nostrils; 
"the  old  man  won't  tolerate  anything  more  decent 
than  a  pipe,  unless  it  happens  to  be  a  chew.  Oh, 
I'm  sick  to  death  of  the  whole  business,"  he  burst 
out  suddenly.  "When  I  woke  up  this  morning  I 
had  more  than  half  a  mind  to  break  loose  and  go 
abroad  to  Maria.  By  the  way,  Wyndham's  dead, 
you  know;  he  died  last  fall  just  after  we  went  away." 

"Ah,  is  that  so!"  exclaimed  Christopher.  "She'll 
come  home,  then,  will  she?" 

"That's  the  queer  part — she  won't,  and  nobody 
knows  why.  Wyndham  turned  out  to  be  a  regular 
scamp,  of  course;  he  treated  her  abominably  and  all 
that,  but  he  no  sooner  died  than  she  turned  about 


3o8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

and  picked  up  one  of  his  sisters  to  nurse  and  coddle. 
Oh,  it's  all  foolishness,  but  I've  half  a  mind  to  run 
away,  all  the  same.  A  life  like  this  will  drive  me 
crazy  in  six  months,  and  I'll  be  hanged  if  it  is  my 
fault,  after  all.  He  knew  I  never  had  a  head  for 
books,  but  he  drove  me  at  them  as  if  I  were  no  better 
than  a  black  slave.  Things  have  all  been  against  me 
from  the  start,  and  yet  I  used  to  think  that  I  was 
born  to  be  lucky " 

"What  does  he  mean  to  do  with  you  now?" 
inquired  Christopher. 

"Put  me  to  the  plough,  he  says;  but  I  can't  stand 
it — I  haven't  the  strength.  Why,  this  morning  he 
made  me  hang  around  that  tobacco  field  in  the 
blazing  sun  for  two  mortal  hours,  minding  those 
shiftless  darkies.  If  I  complain,  or  even  go  off  to 
sit  down  in  a  bit  of  shade,  he  rushes  up  and  blusters 
about  kicking  me  out  of  doors  unless  I  earn  my 
bread.  Oh,  his  temper  is  simply  awful,  and  he  gets 
worse  every  day.  He's  growing  stingy,  too,  and 
makes  us  live  like  beggars.  All  the  vegetables  go 
to  market  now,  and  most  of  the  butter,  and  this 
morning  he  blew  Aunt  Saidie's  head  off  because  she 
had  spring  chickens  on  the  breakfast  table.  I 
don't  dare  ask  him  for  a  penny,  and  yet  he's  rich — 
one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  State,  they  say." 

"Well,  it  sounds  jolly,"  observed  Christopher, 
smiling. 

"Oh,  you  can't  imagine  the  state  of  things,  and 

you'd   never   believe   it   if    I    told   you.     It's   worse 

i  than  any  fuss  you  ever  heard  of  or  ever  saw.     I  used 

to  be  able  to  twist  him  round  my  finger,  you  know, 

and  now  he  hates  me  worse  than  he  does  a  snake. 


THE  WAGES  OF  FOLLY  309 

He  hasn't  spoken  a  word  to  me  since  that  scene  we 
had  at  the  university,  except  to  order  me  to  go  out 
and  watch  the  Negroes  plant  tobacco.  If  he  finds 
out  I  want  a  thing  he'll  move  heaven  and  earth  to 
keep  me  from  getting  it — and  then  sit  by  and  grin. 
He's  got  a  devil  in  him,  that's  the  truth,  and  there's 
nothing  to  do  except  keep  out  of  his  way  as  much 
as  possible.  I'm  patient,  too — Aunt  Saidie  knows  it 
— and  the  only  time  I  ever  hit  back  was  when  he 
jumped  on  you  the  other  day.  Then  I  got  mad  and 
struck  out  hard,  I  tell  you." 

Christopher  leaned  over  and  began  buckling  and 
unbuckling  a  leather  strap  in  the  harness-box. 

"Don't  get  into  hot  water  on  my  account,"  he 
returned;  "the  more  he  abuses  me,  you  know,  the 
better  I  like  it.  But  it's  odd  that  after  all  these 
years  he  should  want  to  turn  you  into  an  overseer." 

"Well,  he  shan't  do  it;  that's  certain.  It  will  be 
a  cold  day  when  he  gets  me  masquerading  in  the 
family  character.  Let  him  go  just  one  step  too  far 
and  I'll  shake  him  off  for  good,  and  strike  out  on  a 
freight -train.  Life  couldn't  be  any  worse  than  it 
is  now,  and  it  might  be  a  great  deal  better.  As  to 
my  hanging  round  like  this  much  longer  and  swearing 
at  a  pack  of  worthless  darkies — well,  it's  more  than 
I  bargain  for,  that's  all." 

"There's  not  much  excitement  in  it,  to  be  sure. 
I  would  rather  be  a  freight-hand  myself,  I  think, 
when  all  is  said." 

"Oh,  you  needn't  joke.  You  were  brought  up 
to  it  and  it  doesn't  come  so  hard." 

"Doesn't  it?" 

"  Not  so  hard  as  it  does  to  me,  at  any  rate.     There's 


310  THE  DELIVERANCE 

got  to  be  some  dash  about  life,  I  tell  you,  to  make 
it  suit  my  taste.  I  wasn't  born  to  settle  down  and 
count  my  money  and  my  tobacco  from  morning 
till  night.  It's  spice  I  want  in  things,  and — hang 
it !  I  don't  believe  there's  a  pretty  woman  in  the 
bounty." 

For  a  moment  Christopher  stared  silently  down 
at  the  matted  straw.  His  face  had  grown  dark, 
and  the  reckless  lines  about  his  mouth  became 
suddenly  prominent. 

"Why,  where's  Molly  Peterkin?"  he  asked 
abruptly,  with  a  laugh  that  seemed  to  slip  from  him 
against  his  will. 

The  other  broke  into  a  long  whistle  and  tossed 
the  end  of  his  cigarette  through  the  doorway. 

"You  needn't  think  I've  forgotten  her,"  he  replied; 
"she's  the  one  bright  spot  I  see  in  this  barren  hole. 
By  the  way,  why  do  you  think  her  a  fool?" 

"Because  she  is  one." 

"And  you're  a  brute.  What  does  a  man  want 
with  brains  in  a  woman,  anyway.  Maria  had  them 
and  they  didn't  keep  her  from  coming  to  shipwreck." 

Christopher  reached  for  the  lantern. 

"Well,  I've  got  to  go  now,"  he  broke  in,  "and 
you'd  better  be  trotting  home  or  you'll  have  the 
old  man  and  the  hounds  out  after  you." 

With  the  lantern  swinging  from  his  hand,  he  went 
to  the  door  and  waited  for  Will;  then  passing  out, 
he  turned  the  key  in  the  lock,  and  with  a  short 
"Good-night !  "  started  briskly  toward  the  house. 

Will  followed  him  to  the  kitchen  steps,  and  then 
keeping  to  the  path  that  trailed  across  the  yard,  he- 
passed  through  the  whitewashed  gate  and  went  on 


THE  WAGES  OF  FOLLY  311 

along  the  sunken  road  which  led  by  the  abandoned 
ice-pond.  Here  he  turned  into  the  avenue  of  chest- 
nuts, and  with  the  lighted  windows  of  the  Hall  before 
him,  walked  slowly  toward  the  impending  interview 
with  his  grandfather. 

As  he  entered  the  house,  Miss  Saidie  looked  out 
from  the  dining-room  doorway  and  beckoned  in  a 
stealthy  fashion  with  the  hen-house  key. 

"He  has  been  hunting  everywhere  for  you,"  she 
whispered,  "and  I  told  him  you'd  gone  for  a  little 
stroll  along  the  road." 

An  expression  of  anger  swept  over  Will's  face, 
and  he  made  a  helpless  gesture  of  revolt. 

"I  won't  stand  it  any  longer,"  he  answered,  with 
a  spurt  of  resolution  which  was  exhausted  in  the 
feeble   speech. 

Miss  Saidie  put  up  her  hand  and  straightened  his 
necktie  with  an  affectionate  pat. 

"Only  for  a  little  while,  dear,"  she  urged;  "he's 
in  one  of  his  black  humours,  and  it  will  blow  over, 
never  fear.  Things  are  never  so  bad  but  there's  hope 
of  a  mending  some  day.  Try  to  please  him  and  go 
to  work  as  he  wants  you  to  do.  It  all  came  of  the 
trouble  at  the  university — he  had  set  his  heart  on 
your  carrying  off  the  honours." 

"It  was  his  fault,"  said  Will  stubbornly.  "I 
begged  him  not  to  send  me  there.     It  was  his  fault." 

"Well,  that  can't  be  helped  now,"  returned  the 
little  woman  decisively.  "All  we  can  do  is  to  make 
things  as  easy  as  we  can,  and  if  thar's  ever  to  be  any 
peace  in  this  house  again  you  must  try  to  humour 
him.  I  never  saw  him  in  such  a  state  before,  and  I've 
known  him  for  sixty  years  and  slept  in  a  trundle-bed 


3i2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

with  him  as  a  baby.  The  queerest  thing  about  it, 
too,  is  that  he  seems  to  get  closer  and  closer  every 
day.  Just  now  thar  was  a  big  fuss  because  I  hadn't 
sent  all  the  fresh  butter  to  market,  and  I  thought  he'd 
have  a  fit  when  he  found  I  was  saving  some  asparagus 
for  dinner  to-morrow." 

"Where  is  he  now?"  asked  Will  in  a  whisper. 

"Complaining  over  some  bills  in  his  setting-room ; 
and  he  actually  told  me  a  while  ago,  when  I  went  in, 
that  he  had  been  a  fool  to  give  Maria  so  much  money 
for  Wyndham  to  throw  away.  Poor  Maria  !  I'm  sure 
she  has  had  a  hard  enough  time  without  being  abused 
for  something  she  couldn't  help.  But  it  really  is 
a  passion  with  him,  thar's  no  use  denying  it.  He 
spends  his  whole  time  adding  up  the  cost  of  what 
we  eat." 

Then,  as  the  supper-bell  rang  in  the  hall,  she 
finished  hurriedly,  and  assuming  a  cheerful  manner, 
took  her  place  behind  the  silver  service. 

Fletcher  entered  with  a  heavy  step,  his  eyes  lower- 
ing beneath  his  bushy  eyebrows.  The  weight  of  his 
years  appeared  to  have  fallen  upon  him  in  a  night, 
and  he  was  no  longer  the  hale,  ruddy  man  of  middle 
age,  with  his  breezy  speeches  and  his  occasional 
touches  of  coarse  humour.  The  untidiness  of  his 
clothes  was  still  marked — his  coat,  his  cravat,  his 
finger  nails,  all  showed  the  old  lack  of  neatness. 

"Won't  you  say  grace,  Brother  Bill?"  asked 
Miss  Saidie,  as  he  paused  abstractedly  beside  his 
chair. 

Bending  his  head,  he  mumbled  a  few  hurried 
words,  and  then  cast  a  suspicious  glance  over  the 
long  table. 


THE  WAGES  OF  FOLLY  313 

"I  told  you  to  use  the  butter  with  onions  in  it," 
he  said,  helping  himself  and  tasting  a  little  on  the 
end  of  his  knife.  "This  brings  forty  cents  a  pound 
in  market,  and  I'll  not  have  the  waste." 

"Oh,  Brother  Bill,  the  other  is  so  bad,"  gasped 
Miss  Saidie  nervously. 

"It's  good  enough  for  you  and  me,  I  reckon.  We 
wan't  brought  up  on  any  better,  and  what's  good 
enough  for  us  is  good  enough  for  my  grandson." 
Then  he  turned  squarely  upon  Will.  "So  you're 
back,  eh?     Whar  did  you  go?"  he  demanded. 

Will  tried  to  meet  his  eyes,  failed,  and  stared 
gloomily  at  the  white-and-red  border  of  the  table- 
cloth. 

"I  went  out  for  a  breath  of  air,"  he  answered  in  a 
muffled  voice.     "It's  been  stifling  all  day." 

"You've  got  to  get  used  to  it,  I  reckon,"  re- 
turned the  old  man  with  a  brutal  laugh.  "I'll 
have  no  idlers  and  no  fancy  men  about  me." 

An  ugly  smile  distorted  his  coarse  features,  and, 
laying  down  his  knife  and  fork,  he  sat  watching  his 
grandson  with  his  small,  bloodshot  eyes. 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Toss  of  a  Coin 

A  fortnight  passed  before  Will  came  to  Christo- 
pher's again,  and  then  he  stole  over  one  evening  in 
the  shadow  of  the  twilight.  Things  were  no  better, 
he  said;  they  were  even  worse  than  usual;  the  work 
in  the  tobacco  field  was  simply  what  he  couldn't 
stand,  and  his  grandfather  was  growing  more  intoler- 
able every  day.  Besides  this,  the  very  dulness  of 
the  life  was  fast  driving  him  to  distraction.  He  had 
smuggled  a  bottle  of  whisky  from  the  town,  and  last 
night,  after  a  hot  quarrel  with  the  old  man,  he  had 
succeeded  in  drugging  himself  to  sleep.  "My  nerves 
have  gone  all  to  pieces,"  he  finished  irritably,  "and 
it's  nothing  on  earth  but  this  everlasting  bickering 
that  has  done  it.  It's  more  than  flesh  and  blood  can 
be  expected  to  put  up  with." 

His  hand  shook  a  little  when  he  lighted  a  cigarette, 
and  his  face,  which  was  burned  red  from  wind  and 
sun,  contracted  nervously  as  he  talked.  It  was 
the  wildness  in  his  speech,  however,  the  suppressed 
excitement  which  ran  in  an  undercurrent  beneath 
his  words,  that  caused  the  other  to  turn  sharply  and 
regard  him  for  a  moment  with  gathered  brows. 

"Well,  take  my  advice  and  don't  try  that  dodge 
too  often,"  remarked  Christopher  in  a  careless  tone. 

3i5 


316  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"What  in  the  deuce  does  it  matter?"  returned 
Will  desperately.  "It  was  the  only  quiet  night  I've 
had  for  three  weeks :  I  slept  like  a  log  straight  through 
until  the  breakfast-bell.  Then  I  was  late,  of  course, 
and  he  threatened  to  take  an  hour's  time  from  my 
day's  wages.  By  the  way,  he  pays  me  now,  you 
know,  just  as  he  does  the  other  labourers." 

For  a  time  he  kept  up  his  rambling  complaint, 
but,  breaking  off  abruptly  at  last,  made  some  trivial 
excuse,  and  started  homeward  across  the  fields. 
Christopher,  looking  after  him,  was  hardly  surprised 
when  he  saw  him  branch  off  into  the  shaded  lane 
that  led  to  Sol  Peterkm's. 

There  followed  a  month  when  the  two  met  only 
at  long  intervals,  and  then  with  a  curious  constraint 
of  manner.  Sometimes  Christopher,  stopping  on  his 
way  to  the  pasture,  would  exchange  a  few  words 
over  the  rail  fence  with  Will,  who  lounged  on  the 
edge  of  his  grandfather's  tobacco  crop;  but  the  old 
intimacy  had  ceased  suddenly  to  exist,  and  it  was 
evident  that  a  newer  interest  had  distracted  the  boy's 
ardent    fancy. 

It  was  not  until  August  that  the  meaning  of 
the  change  was  made  clear  to  Christopher,  when, 
coming  one  day  to  a  short  turn  in  a  little  wood- 
land road  upon  his  land,  he  saw  Will  and  Molly 
Peterkin  sitting  side  by  side  on  a  fallen  log.  The 
girl  had  been  crying,  and  at  the  sight  of  Christopher 
she  gave  a  frightened  sob  and  pulled  her  blue  gingham 
sunbonnet  down  over  her  forehead;  but  Will,  inspired 
at  the  instant  by  some  ideal  of  chivalry,  drew 
her  hand  through  his  arm  and  came  out  boldly 
into  the  road. 


THE  TOSS  OF  A  COIN  317 

"You  know  Molly,"  he  said  in  a  brave  voice  that 
was  not  without  pathos,  "but  you  don't  know  that 
she  has  promised  to  be  my  wife." 

Whatever  the  purpose  of  the  girl's  tears,  she  had 
need  of  them  no  longer,  for  with  an  embarrassed 
little  laugh  she  flushed  and  dimpled  into  her  pretty 
smile. 

"Your  wife?"  repeated  Christopher  blankly. 
"Why,  you're  no  better  than  two  children  and 
deserve  to  be  whipped.  If  I  were  in  your  place,  I'd 
start  to  catching  butterflies,  and  quit  fooling." 

He  passed  on  laughing  merrily;  but  before  the 
day  was  over  he  began  to  wonder  seriously  if  Will 
could  be  really  sincere  in  his  intention  to  marry 
Molly  Peterkin — poor,  pretty  Molly,  whose  fame  was 
blown  to  the  four  corners  of  the  county. 

By  night  the  question  had  come  to  perplex  him 
in  earnest,  and  it  was  almost  with  relief  that  he  heard 
a  familiar  rattle  on  his  window-pane  as  he  undressed, 
and,  looking  out,  saw  Will  standing  in  the  long  grass 
by   the   porch. 

"Well,  it's  time  you  turned  up,"  he  said,  when 
he  had  slipped  cautiously  down  the  staircase  and 
joined  him  in  the  yard. 

"Get  your  lantern,"  returned  Will,  "and  come  on 
to  the  barn.  There's  something  I  must  see  you 
about  at  once,"  and  while  the  other  went  in  search 
of  the  light,  he  stood  impatiently  uprooting  a  tuft 
of  grass  as  he  whistled  a  college  song  in  unsteady 
tones. 

At  the  end  of  a  minute  Christopher  reappeared, 
bearing  the  lantern,  which  he  declared  was  quite 
unnecessary  because  of  the  rising  moon. 


318  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Oh,  but  I  must  talk  indoors,"  responded  Will; 
"the  night  makes  me  creepy — it   always  did." 

"So  there  is  something  to  say,  and  it's  no  non- 
sense ?  Are  the  skies  about  to  fall,  or  has  your 
grandfather  got  a  grip  on  his  temper?" 

"  Pshaw  !  It's  not  that.  Wait  till  we  get  inside. " 
And  when  they  had  entered  the  barn,  he  turned  and 
carefully  closed  the  door,  after  flashing  the  light 
over  the  trampled  straw  in  the  dusky  corners.  In 
the  shed  outside  a  new-born  calf  bleated  plaintively, 
and  at  the  sound  he  started  and  broke  into  an 
apologetic  laugh.  "You  thought  I  was  joking 
to-day,"  he  said  suddenly. 

Christopher  nodded. 

"So  I  presumed,"  he  answered,  wondering  if 
drink  or  love  or  both  together  had  produced  so 
extreme  an  agitation. 

"Well,  I  wasn't,"  declared  Will,  and,  placing  the 
lantern  on  the  floor,  he  raised  his  head  to  meet  the 
other's  look.  "I  was  as  dead  in  earnest  as  I  am 
this  minute — and  if  it's  the  last  word  I  ever  speak, 
I  mean  to  marry  Molly  Peterkin. " 

His  excitable  nerves  were  plainly  on  the  rack  of 
some  strong  emotion,  and  as  he  met  the  blank 
amazement  in  Christopher's  face  he  turned  away 
with  a  gesture  of  angry  reproach. 

"Then  you're  a  fool,"  said  Christopher,  with  a 
shrug  of  his  shoulders. 

Will  quivered  as  if  the  words  struck  him  like  a 
whip. 

"Because  she's  Sol  Peterkin's  daughter?"  he  burst 
out. 

Christopher  smiled. 


THE  TOSS  OF  A  COIN  319 

"It's  not  her  father,  but  her  character,  that  I  was 
thinking  of,"  he  answered,  and  the  next  instant  fell 
back  in  sheer  surprise,  for  Will,  flinging  himself 
recklessly  upon  him,  struck  him  squarely  in  the 
mouth. 

As  they  fell  breathlessly  apart  Christopher  was 
conscious  that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  felt 
something  like  respect  for  Will  Fletcher — or  at  least 
for  that  expression  of  courageous  passion  which  in 
the  vivid  moments  of  men's  lives  appears  to  raise 
the  strong  and  the  weak  alike  above  the  ordinary  level 
of  their  surroundings.  For  a  second  he  stood 
swallowing  down  the  anger  which  the  blow  aroused 
in  him — an  anger  as  purely  physical  as  the  mounting 
of  the  hot  blood  to  his  cheek — then  he  looked  straight 
into  the  other's  face  and  spoke  in  a  pleasant  voice. 

"I  beg  your  pardon;  it  was  all  my  fault,"  he  said. 

"I  knew  you'd  see  it,"  answered  Will,  appeased 
at  once  by  the  confession,  "and  I  counted  on  you  to 
help  us;  that's  why  I  came." 

"To  help  you?"  repeated  Christopher,  a  little 
startled. 

"Well,  we've  got  to  be  married,  you  know — 
there's  simply  nothing  else  to  do.  All  this  confounded 
talk  about  Molly  has  come  near  killing  her,  and 
the  poor  child  is  afraid  to  look  anybody  in  the  face. 
She's  so  innocent,  you  know,  that  half  the  time  she 
doesn't  understand  what  their  lies  are  all  about." 

"Good  God  !"  said  Christopher  beneath  his  breath. 

"And  besides,  what  use  is  there  in  waiting  ?"  urged 
Will.  "Grandpa  won't  be  any  better  fifty  years 
from  now  than  he  is  to-day,  and  by  that  time  we'd 
be  old  and  gray-haired.     This  life  is  more  than  I  can 


32o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stand,  anyway,  and  it  makes  mighty  little  difference 
whether  it  ends  one  way  or  another.  Just  so  I  have 
Molly  I  don't  care  much  what  happens." 

"But  you  can't  marry — it's  simply  out  of  the 
question.     Why,  you're  not  yet  twenty." 

"Oh,  we  can't  marry  here,  of  course,  but  we're 
going  on  to  Washington  to-morrow — all  our  plans 
are  made,  and  that's  why  I  came  to  see  you.  I 
want  to  borrow  your  horses  to  take  us  to  the  cross- 
roads at  midnight." 

Seizing  him  by  the  shoulder,  Christopher  shook 
him  roughly  in  a  powerful  grasp. 

"Wake  up,"  he  said  impatiently;  "you  are  either 
drunk  or  asleep,  and  you're  going  headlong  to  the 
devil.  If  you  do  this  thing  you'll  be  ashamed  of  it 
in  two  weeks."  Then  he  released  him,  laughing  as  he 
watched  him  totter  and  regain  his  balance.  "  But  if 
you're  bent  on  being  an  ass,  then,  for  heaven's  sake, 
go  and  be  one, "  he  added  irritably. 

A  shiver  passed  through  Will,  and  he  stuttered 
an  instant  before  he  could  form  his  words. 

"She  told  me  you'd  say  that,"  he  replied.  "She 
told  me  you'd  always  hated  her." 

"Hate  her?  Nonsense!  She  isn't  worth  it.  I'd 
as  soon  hate  a  white  kitten.  As  far  as  that  goes, 
I've  nothing  against  the  girl,  and  I  don't  doubt  she'd 
be  a  much  better  wife  than  most  men  deserve.  I'm 
not  prating  about  virtue,  mind  you;  I'm  only  urging 
common  sense.  You're  too  young  and  too  big  a 
fool  to  marry  anybody." 

"Well,  you  disapprove  of  her,  at  any  rate — you're 
against  her,  and  that's  why  I  haven't  talked  about 
her  before.     She's  the  most  beautiful  creature  alive, 


THE  TOSS  OF  A  COIN  321 

I  tell  you,  and  I  wouldn't  give  her  up  if  to  keep  her 
meant  I'd  be  a  beggar." 

"It  will  mean  that,  most  likely." 

Turning  away,  Will  drew  a  small  flask  from  his 
pocket  and,  unscrewing  the  stopper,  raised  the  bottle 
to  his  lips.  "I'd  go  mad  but  for  this,"  he  said; 
"that's  why  I've  carried  it  about  with  me  for  the 
last  week.  It's  the  only  thing  that  drives  away 
this  horrible  depression." 

As  he  drank,  Christopher  regarded  him  curiously, 
noting  that  the  whisky  lent  animation  to  his  face 
and  an  unnatural  luster  to  his  eyes.  The  sunburn 
on  his  forehead  appeared  to  deepen  all  at  once,  and 
there  was  a  bright  red  flush  across  his  cheeks. 

"You  won't  take  my  advice,"  said  Christopher 
at  last,  "but  I  can't  help  telling  you  that  unless 
you're  raving  mad  you'd  better  drop  the  whole  affair 
as  soon  as  possible." 

"Not  now — not  now,"  protested  Will  gaily, 
consumed  by  an  artificial  energy.  "Don't  preach 
to  me  while  the  taste  of  a  drink  is  still  in  my  mouth, 
for  there's  no  heart  so  strong  as  the  one  whisky  puts 
into  a  man.  When  I  feel  my  courage  oozing  from 
my  fingers  I  can  reinforce  it  in  less  time  than  it  takes 
to  sneak  away. " 

Growing  boisterous,  he  assumed  a  ridiculous 
swagger,  and  broke  into  a  fragment  of  a  college  song. 
Until  morning  he  would  not  probably  become  himself 
again,  and,  knowing  this,  Christopher  desisted  help- 
lessly from  his  efforts  at  persuasion. 

"You  will  lend  me  the  horses  ? "  asked  Will,  keeping 
closely  to  his  point. 

"Are  you  steady  enough?" 


322  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"  Of  course — of  course,  "  he  stretched  out  his  hands 
and  moved  a  pace  or  two  away;  "and  besides,  Molly 
drives  like  old  Nick." 

"Well,  I'll  see, "said  Christopher,  and  going  to  the 
window,  he  flung  back  the  rude  shutter  and  looked 
out  into  the  August  night.  The  warm  air  touched 
his  face  like  a  fragrant  breath,  and  from  the  darkness 
a  big  white  moth  flew  over  his  shoulder  to  where 
the  lantern  burned  dimly  on  the  floor. 

"  I  may  take  them?"  urged  Will  again,  pulling  him 
by  the  sleeve. 

At  the  words  Christopher  turned  and  walked 
slowly  back  across  the  barn. 

"Yes,  I'll  lend  them  to  you,  "  he  answered,  without 
meeting  the  other's  eyes. 

"  You're  a  jolly  good  chap ;  I  always  knew  it, "  cried 
Will  heartily.  "I'll  take  them  out  at  midnight, 
when  there's  a  good  moon,  and  get  Jerry  Green  to 
drive  them  back  to-morrow.  Hurrah  !  It's  the  best 
night's  work  you  ever  did !" 

He  went  out  hurriedly,  still  singing  his  college 
song,  and  Christopher,  without  moving  from  his 
place,  stood  watching  the  big  white  moth  that  circled 
dizzily  about  the  lantern.  At  the  instant  he  regretted 
that  Will  had  appealed  to  him — regretted  even  that 
he  had  promised  him  the  horses.  He  wished  it  had 
all  come  about  without  his  knowledge — that  Fletcher's 
punishment  and  Will's  ruin  had  been  wrought  less 
directly  by  his  own  intervention.  Next  he  told 
himself  that  he  would  have  stopped  this  thing  had 
it  been  possible,  and  then  with  the  thought  he  became 
clearly  aware  that  it  was  still  in  his  power  to  prevent 
the  marriage.     He  had  but  to  walk  across  the  fields 


THE  TOSS  OF  A  COIN  323 

to  Fletcher's  door,  and  before  sunrise  the  foolish 
pair  would  be  safely  home  again.  Will  would 
probably  be  sent  off  to  recover,  and  Molly  would  go 
back  to  making  butter  and  to  flirting  with  Fred 
Turner.  On  the  other  hand,  let  the  marriage  but 
take  place — let  him  keep  silent  until  the  morning — 
and  the  revenge  of  which  he  had  dreamed  since  child- 
hood would  be  accomplished  at  a  single  stroke.  Bill 
Fletcher's  many  sins  would  find  him  out  in  a  night. 

The  big  moth,  fluttering  aimlessly  from  the  lantern, 
flew  suddenly  in  his  face,  and  the  touch  startled  him 
from  his  abstraction.  With  a  laugh  he  shook  the 
responsibility  from  his  shoulders,  and  then,  as  he 
hesitated  again  for  a  breath,  the  racial  instinct  arose, 
as  usual,  to  decide  the  issue. 

Taking  a  dime  from  his  pocket,  he  tossed  it  lightly 
in  the  air  and  waited  for  it  to  fall. 

"Heads  for  me,  tails  for  Fletcher. " 

The  coin  spun  for  an  instant  in  the  gloom  above 
him  and  then  dropped  noiselessly  to  the  floor.  When 
he  lifted  the  lantern  and  bent  over  it  he  saw  that 
the  head  lay  uppermost. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
In  Which  Christopher  Triumphs 

When  he  entered  the  house  a  little  later  Cynthia 
met  him  in  the  kitchen  doorway  with  an  anxious 
frown. 

"I  heard  a  noise,   Christopher.     What  was  it?" 

"A  man  wanted  me  about  something.  How  is 
mother  resting?" 

"Not  well.  Her  dreams  trouble  her.  She  grows 
weaker  every  day,  and  the  few  hours  she  insists  upon 
spending  in  her  chair  tire  her  dreadfully." 

"There  is  nothing  that  she  needs,  you  say?" 

"No;  nothing.  She  has  never  felt  our  poverty 
for  an  instant. " 

The  furrow  between  his  eyebrows  grew  deeper. 
"And  you?"  he  asked  abruptly,  regarding  her  fixedly 
with  his  intent  gaze.  "What  under  heaven  are  you 
up  to  at  this  hour?" 

Glancing  down  at  the  ironing-board  before  her, 
she  flushed  painfully  through  the  drawn  grayness 
of  her  face. 

"I  had  a  little  ironing  to  do,"  she  answered,  "and 
I  wanted  it  all  finished  to-night.  Mother  needs  me 
in  the  day. " 

Pushing  her  aside,  he  seized  the  iron  and  ran  it 
in  a  few  hasty  strokes  over  the  rough-dry  garment 

325 


326  THE  DELIVERANCE 

which  she  had  spread  on  the  board.  "Go  to  bed 
and  leave  these  things  alone,"  he  insisted. 

"Oh,  Christopher,  you'll  spoil  it!"  cried  Cynthia, 
clutching  his  arm. 

He  returned  the  iron  to  the  stand  and  met  her 
reproachful  look  with  a  gesture  of  annoyance.  "Well, 
I'm  going  to  sleep,  if  you  aren't,"  he  said,  and  treading 
as  lightly  as  possible  in  his  heavy  boots,  went  along 
the  little  platform  and  upstairs  to  his  garret  room. 

Once  inside,  he  undressed  hastily  and  flung  himself 
upon  the  bed,  but  his  thoughts  spun  like  a  top,  and 
wild  visions  of  Will,  of  Fletcher,  and  of  Molly  Peterkin 
whirled  confusedly  through  his  brain.  When  at 
last  he  lost  consciousness  for  a  time,  it  was  to  dream 
restlessly  of  the  cry  of  a  hare  that  the  hounds  had 
caught  and  mangled.  The  scream  of  the  creature 
came  to  him  from  a  thick  wood,  which  was  intersected 
by  innumerable  small  green  paths,  and  when  he  tried 
vainly  to  go  to  the  rescue  he  lost  himself  again  and 
again  in  the  wilderness  of  trails.  Back  and  forth 
he  turned  in  the  twilight,  crushing  down  the  under- 
brush and  striking  in  a  frenzy  at  the  forked  boughs 
the  trees  wrapped  about  him,  while  suddenly  the 
piteous  voice  became  that  of  a  woman  in  distress. 
Then,  with  a  great  effort,  he  fought  his  way  through 
the  wood,  to  see  the  mangled  hare  change  slowly 
into  Maria  Fletcher,  who  opened  her  eyes  to  ask  him 
why  he  hunted  her  to  death. 

He  awoke  in  a  cold  sweat,  and,  sitting  up  in  bed, 
leaned  for  air  toward  the  open  window.  A  dull 
ache  gnawed  at  his  heart,  and  his  lips  were  parched 
as  if  from  fever.  Again  it  seemed  to  him  that  Maria 
entreated  him  across  the  distance. 


CHRISTOPHER  TRIUMPHS  327 

When  he  came  down  at  sunrise  he  found  Jerry 
Green  awaiting  him  with  the  horses,  and  learned 
in  answer  to  his  questions  that  the  lovers  had  taken 
a  light  wagon  at  the  cross-roads  and  driven  on  to 
town. 

"They  were  that  bent  on  gittin'  thar  that  they 
couldn't  even  wait  for  the  stage,"  the  man  told  him. 
"Well,  they're  a  merry  pair,  an'  I  hope  good  will 
come  of  it — seein'  as  'tain't  no  harm  to  hope. " 

"Oh,  they  think  so  now,  at  any  rate,"  Christopher 
replied,  as  he  turned  away  to  unharness  the  patient 
horses. 

At  breakfast,  an  hour  or  two  later,  he  learned  that 
his  mother  was  in  one  of  her  high  humours,  and  that, 
awaking  early  and  prattling  merrily  of  the  past, 
she  insisted  that  they  should  dress  her  immediately 
in  her  black  brocade.  When  the  meal  was  over  he 
carried  her  from  her  bed  to  the  old  oak  chair,  in 
which  she  managed  to  keep  upright  among  her 
pillows.  Her  gallant  spirit  was  still  youthful  and 
undaunted,  and  the  many  infirmities  of  her  body 
were  powerless  to  distort  the  cheerful  memories 
behind  her  sightless  eyes. 

Leaving  her  presently,  after  a  careless  chat  about 
the  foibles  of  Bolivar  Blake,  he  took  his  hoe  from 
an  outhouse  and  went  to  "grub"  the  young  weeds 
from  the  tobacco,  which  had  now  reached  its  luxuriant 
August  height.  By  noon  his  day's  work  on  the 
crop  was  over,  and  he  was  resting  for  a  moment  in  the 
shadow  of  a  locust  tree  by  the  fence,  when  he  heard 
rapid  footsteps  approaching  in  the  new  road,  and 
Bill  Fletcher  threw  himself  over  the  crumbling 
rails  and  came  panting  into  the  strip  of  shade.     At 


328  THE  DELIVERANCE 

sight  of  the  man's  face  Christopher  flung  his  hoe 
out  into  the  field,  where  it  bore  down  a  giant  plant, 
and  bracing  his  body  against  the  tree,  prepared 
himself  to  withstand  the  shock  of  the  first  blow; 
,,but  the  other,  after  glaring  at  him  for  a  breathless 
instant,  fell  back  and  rapped  out  a  single  thun- 
dering oath. 

"You   hell-hound!     This   is    all    your  doing!" 

Throwing  off  the  words  with  a  gesture  of  his  arm, 
Christopher  stared  coolly  into  the  other's  distorted 
face;  then,  yielding  to  the  moment's  vindictive 
impulse,  he  broke  into  a  sneering  laugh. 

"So  you  have  heard  the  good  news?"  he  inquired 
lightly. 

Before  the  rage  in  the  old  man's  eyes — before  the 
convulsed  features  and  the  quivering  limbs — he  felt 
a  savage  joy  suddenly  take  possession  of  him. 

"It's  all  your  doing,  every  last  bit  of  it,"  re- 
peated Fletcher  hoarsely,  "and  I'll  live  to  pay  you 
back  if  I  hang  for  it  in  the  end  ! " 

"Go  ahead,  then,"  retorted  Christopher;  "you 
might  as  well  hang  for  a  sheep  as  for  a  lamb,  you 
know." 

"Oh,  you  think  I'm  fooling?"  said  the  other, 
wiping  a  fleck  of  foam  from  his  mouth,  "but  you'll 
find  out  better  some  day,  unless  the  devil  gets  you 
mighty  quick.  You've  made  that  boy  a  scamp  and 
a  drunkard,  and  now  you've  gone  and  married  him 

to   a  "     He    swallowed  the   words    and    stood 

gasping  above  his  loosened  collar. 

Christopher  paled  slightly  beneath  his  sunburn; 
then,  as  he  recovered  his  assurance,  a  brutal  smile 
was  sketched  about  his  mouth. 


CHRISTOPHER  TRIUMPHS  329 

"Come,  come,  go  easy,"  he  protested  flippantly; 
"there's  such  a  thing,  you  remember,  as  the  pot 
calling  the  kettle  black." 

His  gay  voice  fell  strangely  on  the  other's  husky 
tones,  and  for  the  moment,  in  spite  of  his  earth- 
stained  hands  and  his  clothes  of  coarse  blue  jean,  he 
might  have  been  a  man  of  the  world  condescending 
to  a  peasant.  It  was  at  such  times,  when  a  raw 
emotion  found  expression  in  the  primitive  lives 
about  him,  that  he  realised  most  vividly  the  gulf 
between  him  and  his  neighbours.  To  his  superficial 
unconcern  they  presented  the  sincerity  of  naked 
passion. 

"You've  made  the  boy  what  he  is,"  repeated  the 
old  man,  in  a  quiver  from  head  to  foot.  "You've 
done  your  level  best  to  send  him  to  the  devil." 

"Well,  he  had  a  pretty  good  start,  it  seems,  before 
I  ever  laid  eyes  on  him." 

"You  set  out  to  ruin  him  from  the  first,  and  I 
watched  you,"  went  on  Fletcher,  choking  over  each 
separate  word  before  he  uttered  it;  "my  eye  was  on 
your  game,  and  if  you  were  anything  but  the  biggest 
villain  on  earth  I  could  have  stopped  it.  But  for 
you  he'd  be  a  decent  chap  this  very  minute." 

"And  the  pattern  of  his  grandfather,"  sneered 
Christopher. 

Fletcher  raised  his  arm  for  a  blow  and  then  let 
it  fall  limply  to  his  side.  "Oh,  I'm  done  with  you 
now,  and  I'm  done  with  your  gang,"  he  said.  "Play 
your  devil's  tricks  as  much  as  you  please;  they  won't 
touch  me.  If  that  boy  sets  foot  on  my  land  again 
I'll  horsewhip  him  as  I  would  a  hound.  Let  him  see 
who'll  feed  him  now  when  he  comes  to  starve." 


33o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Catching  his  breath,  Christopher  stared  at  him  an 
instant  in  silence;  then  he  spoke  in  a  voice  which 
had  grown  serious. 

"The  more  fool  you,  then,"  he  said.  "The  chap's 
your  grandson,  and  he's  a  better  one  than  you  deserve. 
Whatever  he  is,  I  tell  you  now,  he's  a  long  sight  too 
good  for  such  as  you — and  so  is  Molly  Peterkin,  for 
that  matter.  Heavens  above  !  What  are  you  that 
you  should  become  a  stickler  for  honesty  in  others  ? 
Do  you  think  I've  forgotten  that  you  drove  my 
father  to  his  grave,  and  that  the  very  land  you  live 
on  you  stole  from  me  ?  Pshaw  !  It  takes  more  than 
twenty  years  to  bury  a  thing  like  that,  you  fool!" 

Fletcher  looked  helplessly  round  for  a  weapon,  and 
catching  sight  of  the  hoe,  raised  it  in  his  hands; 
but  Christopher,  seizing  it  roughly  from  him,  tossed 
it  behind  him  in  the  little  path. 

"I'll  have  none  of  that,"  added  the  young  man 
grimly. 

You're  a  liar,  as  your  father  was  before  you, ' '  burst 
out  Fletcher,  swallowing  hard ;  "  and  as  for  that  scamp 
you've  gone  and  sent  to  hell,  you  can  let  him  starve 
or  not,  jest  as  you  please.  He  has  made  his  choice 
between  us,  and  he  can  stick  to  it  till  he  rots  in  the 
poorhouse.  Much  good  you'll  do  him  in  the  end,. 
I  reckon." 

"Well,  just  now  it  seems  he  hasn't  chosen  either 
of  us,"  remarked  Christopher,  cooling  rapidly  as  the 
other's  anger  grew  red  hot.  "It  rather  looks  as  if 
he'd  chosen  Molly  Peterkin." 

"Damn  you!"  gasped  Fletcher,  putting  up  a 
nerveless  hand  to  tear  his  collar  apart,  while  a  purple 
flush   rose   slowly   from  his  throat  to  his  forehead. 


CHRISTOPHER  TRIUMPHS  331 

"If  you  name  that  huzzy  to  me  again  I'll  thrash  you 
within  an  inch  of  your  life  !" 

"Let's  try  it,"  suggested  Christopher  in  an  irri- 
tating drawl. 

"Oh,  I'm  used  to  bullies  like  you,"  pursued  the 
old  man.  "I  know  the  kind  of  brute  that  thinks 
he  can  knock  his  way  into  heaven.  Your  father  was 
jest  sech  another,  and  if  you  come  to  die  a  crazy 
drunkard  like  him  it'll  be  about  the  end  that  you 
deserve !" 

An  impatient  frown  drew  Christopher's  brows 
together,  and,  picking  up  the  hoe,  he  walked  leisurely 
out  into  the  field. 

"Well,  I  can't  stop  to  hear  your  opinion  of  me," 
he  observed.  "You'll  have  to  keep  it  until  another 
time,"  and  breaking  into  a  careless  whistle,  he  strode 
off  between  the  tobacco  furrows  on  his  way  to  bring 
the  old  mare  from  the  pasture. 

A  little  later,  alone  with  the  broad  white  noon  and 
the  stillness  of  the  meadow,  his  gay  whistle  ended 
abruptly  on  his  lips  and  the  old  sullen  frown  con- 
tracted his  heavy  brows.  It  was  in  vain  that  he 
tried  to  laugh  away  the  depression  of  the  moment; 
the  white  glare  of  the  fields  and  the  perfume  of  wild 
flowers  blooming  in  hot  sunshine  produced  in  him 
a  sensation  closely  akin  to  physical  nausea — a  disgust 
of  himself  and  of  the  life  and  the  humanity  that  he 
had  known.  What  was  it  all  worth,  after  all? 
And  what  of  satisfaction  was  there  to  be  found  in 
the  thing  he  sought  ?  Fletcher's  face  rose  suddenly 
before  him,  and  when  he  tried  to  banish  the  memory 
the  effort  that  he  made  brought  but  the  more  dis- 
tinctly to  his  eyes  the  coarse,  bloated  features  with 


332  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  swollen  veins  across  the  nose.  Trivial  recollec- 
tions returned  to  annoy  him — the  way  the  man 
sucked  in  his  breath  when  he  was  angry,  and  the 
ceaseless  twitching  of  the  small  muscles  above  his 
bloodshot  eyes.  "Pshaw!  What  business  is  it  of 
rnine?"  he  questioned  angrily.  "What  am  I  to  the 
man,  that  I  cannot  escape  the  disgust  that  he  arouses  ? 
Is  it  possible  that  I  should  be  haunted  forever  by  a 
face  I  hate?  There  are  times  when  I  could  kill  him 
simply  because  of  the  repulsion  that  I  feel.  As 
for  the  boy — let  him  marry  a  dozen  Molly  Peterkins 
— who  cares?  Not  I,  surely.  When  he  turns  upon 
his  grandfather  and  they  fall  to  gnawing  at  each 
other's  bones,  the  better  I  shall  be  pleased."  He 
shook  his  head  impatiently,  but  the  oppression 
which  in  some  vague  way  he  associated  with  the 
white  heat  and  the  scent  of  wild  flowers  still  weighed 
heavily  upon  his  thoughts.  "  Is  it  possible  that  after 
all  that  has  happened  I  am  not  yet  satisfied?"  he 
asked,   with  annoyance. 

For  awhile  he  lingered  by  the  little  brook  in  the 
pasture,  and  then  slipping  the  bridle  on  the  old  mare, 
returned  slowly  to  the  house.  At  the  bars  he  met 
Sol  Peterkin,  who  had  hurried  over  in  evident  con- 
sternation to  deliver  his  news. 

"Good  Lord,  Mr.  Christopher!  What  do  you 
think  that  gal  of  mine  has  gone  and  done  now?" 

Christopher  slid  the  topmost  bar  from  its  place 
and  lifted  his  head 

"Don't  tell  me  that  she's  divorced  already,"  he 
returned.  "Why,  the  last  I  heard  of  her  she  had 
run  off  this  morning  to  marry  Will  Fletcher." 

"That's  it,  suh;  that's  it,"  said  Sol.     "I'm  meanin' 


CHRISTOPHER  TRIUMPHS  333 

the  marriage.  Well,  well,  it  does  seem  that  you 
can't  settle  down  an'  begin  to  say  yo'  grace  over  one 
trouble  befo'  a  whole  batch  lights  upon  you.  To 
think,  arter  the  way  I've  sweated  an'  delved  to  be 
honest,  that  a  gal  of  mine  should  tie  me  hand  an' 
foot  to  Bill  Fletcher." 

In  spite  of  his  moodiness,  the  humour  of  the 
situation  struck  home  to  Christopher,  and  throwing 
back  his  head  he  burst  into  a  laugh. 

"Oh,  you  needn't  poke  yo'  fun,  suh,"  continued 
Sol.  "Money  is  a  mighty  good  thing,  but  you  can't 
put  it  in  the  blood,  like  you  kin  meanness.  All 
Bill  Fletcher's  riches  ain't  soaked  in  him  blood  anr 
bone,  but  his  meanness  is,  an'  that  thar  meanness 
goes  a  long  sight  further  than  his  money.  Thar 
ain't  much  sto'  set  by  honesty  in  this  here  world, 
suh,  an'  you  kin  buy  a  bigger  chaw  of  tobaccy  with 
five  cents  than  you  kin  with  all  the  virtue  of  Moses 
on  his  Mount;  but  all  the  same  it's  a  mighty  good 
thing  to  rest  yo'  head  on  when  you  go  to  bed,  an' 
I  ain't  sure  but  it  makes  easier  lyin'  than  a  linen 
pillow-slip  an'  a  white  goose  tick " 

"Oh,  I  dare  say,"  interrupted  Christopher;  "but 
now  that  it's  over  we  must  make  the  best  of  it.  She 
didn't  marry  Bill  Fletcher,  after  all,  you  know " 

He  checked  himself  with  a  start,  and  the  bridle 
slipped  from  his  arm  to  the  ground,  for  his  name  was 
called  suddenly  in  a  high  voice  from  the  house,  and 
as  he  swung  himself  over  the  bars  Lila  came  running 
barehead  across  the  yard. 

"Christopher!"  she  cried;  "we  could  not  find 
you,  and  Bill  Fletcher  has  talked  to  mother  like  a 
madman.     Come    quickly!     She    has   fainted!" 


334  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Before  she  had  finished,  he  had  dashed  past  her 
and  through  the  house  into  the  little  parlour,  where 
the  old  lady  sat  erect  and  unconscious  in  her  Eliza« 
bethan  chair. 

"I  found  her  like  this,"  said  Lila,  weeping.  "We 
heard  loud  voices  and  then  a  scream,  and  when  we 
rushed  in  the  man  left,  and  she  sat  looking  straight 
ahead  like  this — like  this." 

Throwing  himself  upon  his  knees  beside  the  chair, 
Christopher  caught  his  mother  to  his  breast  and 
turned  angrily  upon  the  women. 

"Has  nothing  been  done?  Where  is  the  doctor?" 
he  cried. 

"Jim  has  gone  for  him.  Here,  let  me  take  her," 
said  Cynthia,  unclasping  his  arms.  "There,  stand 
back.  She  is  not  dead.  In  a  little  while  she  will 
come  to  herself  again." 

Rising  from  the  floor,  he  stood  motionless  in  the 
center  of  the  room,  where  the  atmosphere  was 
heavy  with  the  fragrance  of  camphor  and  tea-roses. 
A  broad  strip  of  sunshine  was  at  his  feet,  and  in  the 
twisted  aspen  beside  the  window  a  catbird  was 
singing.  These  remained  with  him  for  years  after- 
ward, and  with  them  the  memory  of  the  blind 
woman  sitting  stiffy  erect  and  staring  vacantly  into 
his  face. 

"He  has  told  her  everything,"  said  Cynthia — 
"after  twenty  years." 


BOOK  IV 
THE  AWAKENING 


THE     AWAKENING 

CHAPTER    I 

The     Unforeseen 

THE  road  was  steep,  and  Christopher,  descending 
from  the  big,  lumbering  cart,  left  the  oxen 
to  crawl  slowly  up  the  incline.  It  was  a 
windy  afternoon  in  March,  and  he  was  returning 
from  a  trip  to  Farrar's  mill,  which  was  reached  by 
a  lane  that  branched  off  a  half-mile  or  so  from  the 
cross-roads.  A  blue  sky  shone  brightly  through  the 
leafless  boughs  above  him,  and  along  the  little 
wayside  path  tufts  of  dandelion  were  blooming 
in  the  red  dust.  The  wind,  which  blew  straight 
toward  him  from  the  opening  beyond  the  strip  of 
wood  in  which  he  walked,  brought  the  fresh  scent 
of  the  upturned  fields  and  of  the  swelling  buds 
putting  out  with  the  warm  sunshine.  In  his  own 
veins  he  felt  also  that  the  blood  had  stirred,  and  that 
strange,  quickening  impulse,  which  comes  with  the 
rising  sap  alike  to  a  man  and  to  a  tree,  worked 
restlessly  in  his  limbs  at  the  touch  of  spring.  Nature 
was  alive  again,  and  he  felt  vaguely  that  in  the 
resurrection  surrounding  him  he  must  have  his 
part — that  in  him  as  well  as  in  the  earth  the  spirit 
of  life  must  move   and  put  forth  in  gladness.     A 

337 


338  THE  DELIVERANCE 

flock  of  swallows  passed  suddenly  like  a  streak  of 
smoke  on  the  blue  sky  overhead,  and  as  his  eyes 
followed  them  the  old  roving  instinct  pulled  at  his 
heart.  To  be  up  and  away,  to  drink  life  to  its 
dregs  and  come  home  for  rest,  were  among  the 
impulses  which  awoke  with  the  return  of  spring. 

The  oxen  moved  behind  him  at  a  leisurely  pace, 
and  outstripping  them  in  a  little  while,  he  had 
turned  at  a  sudden  opening  in  the  trees  into  the 
main  road,  when,  to  his  surprise,  he  saw  a  woman 
m  black,  followed  by  a  small  yellow  dog,  walking  in 
front  of  him  along  the  grassy  path.  As  he  caught  sight 
of  her  a  strong  gust  of  wind  swept  down  the  road, 
wrapping  her  skirt  closely  about  her  and  whirling 
a  last  year's  leaf  into  her  face.  For  a  moment  she 
paused  and,  throwing  back  her  head,  drank  the  air 
like  water;  then,  holding  firmly  to  her  hat,  she  started 
on  again  at  her  rapid  pace.  In  the  ease  with  which 
she  moved  against  the  wind,  in  the  self-possession 
of  her  carriage,  and  most  of  all  in  the  grace  with 
which  she  lifted  her  long  black  skirt,  made,  he  could 
see,  after  the  fashion  of  the  outside  world,  he  realised 
at  once  that  she  was  a  stranger  to  the  neighbourhood. 
No  woman  whom  he  had  known — not  even  Lila — 
had  this  same  light  yet  energetic  walk — a  walk  in 
which  every  line  in  her  body  moved  in  accord  with 
the  buoyant  impulse  that  controlled  her  step.  As 
he  watched  her  he  recalled  instantly  the  flight  of  a 
swallow  in  the  air,  for  her  passage  over  the  ground 
was  as  direct  and  beautiful  as  a  bird's. 

When  he  neared  her  she  turned  suddenly,  and,  as 
she  flung  back  her  short  veil,  he  saw  to  his  amazement 
that  he  faced  Maria  Fletcher. 


THE  UNFORESEEN  339 

"So  you  have  forgotten  me?"  she  said,  with  a 
smile.  "Or  have  I  changed  so  greatly  that  my  old 
friends  do  not  know  me  ? ' ' 

She  held  out  her  hand,  and  while  a  tremor  ran 
through  him,  he  kept  her  bared  palm  for  an  instant 
in  his  own. 

"You  dropped  from  the  sky,"  he  answered,  steady- 
ing his  voice  with  an  effort.  "You  have  taken  my 
breath  away  and  I  cannot  speak." 

Then  letting  her  hand  fall,  he  stood  looking  at  her 
in  a  wonder  that  shone  in  his  face,  for  to  the  Maria 
whom  he  had  known  the  woman  before  him  now 
bore  only  the  resemblance  that  the  finished  portrait 
bears  to  the  charcoal  sketch;  and  the  years  which 
had  so  changed  and  softened  her  had  given  her 
girlish  figure  a  nobility  that  belonged  to  the  maturity 
she  had  not  reached.  It  was  not  that  she  had  grown 
beautiful — when  he  sought  for  physical  changes  he 
found  only  that  her  cheek  was  rounder,  her  bosom 
fuller;  but  if  she  still  lacked  the  ruddy  attraction 
of  mere  flesh-and-blood  loveliness,  she  had  gained 
the  deeper  fascination  which  is  the  outward  accom- 
paniment of  a  fervent  spirit.  Her  eyes,  her  voice, 
her  gestures  were  all  attuned  to  the  inner  harmony 
which  he  recognised  also  in  the  smile  with  which 
she  met  his  words ;  and  the  charm  that  she  irradiated 
was  that  rarest  of  all  physical  gifts,  the  power  of 
the  flesh  to  express  the  soul  that  it  envelops. 

The  wind  or  the  meeting  with  himself  had  brought 
a  faint  flush  to  her  cheek,  but  without  lowering  her 
eyes  she  stood  regarding  him  with  her  warm,  grave 
smile.  The  pale  oval  of  her  face,  framed  in  the 
loosened  waves    of    her    black    hair,    had    for    him 


34Q 


THE  DELIVERANCE 


all  the  remoteness  that  surrounded  her  memory; 
and  yet,  though  he  knew  it  not,  the  appeal  she  made 
to  him  now,  and  had  made  long  ago,  was  that  he 
recognised  in  her,  however  dumbly,  a  creature  born, 
like  himself,  with  the  power  to  experience  the  fulness 
of  joy  or  grief. 

"So  I  have  taken  your  breath  away,"  she  said; 
"and  you  have  forgotten  Agag." 

"Agag?"  he  turned  with  a  question  and  followed 
her  glance  in  the  direction  of  the  dog.  "It  is  the 
brute  you  saved  ? ' ' 

"Only  he  is  not  a  brute — I  have  seen  many  men 
who  were  more  of  one.  Look  !  He  recognises  you. 
He  has  followed  me  everywhere,  but  he  doesn't 
like  Europe,  and  if  you  could  have  seen  his  joy  when 
we  got  out  at  the  cross-roads  and  he  smelt  the  familiar 
country!     It  was  almost  as  great  as  mine." 

"As  yours?     Then  you  no  longer  hate  it?" 

"I  have  learned  to  love  it  in  the  last  six  years," 
she  answered,  "as  I  have  learned  to  love  many 
things  that  I  once  hated.  Oh,  this  wind  is  good 
when  it  blows  over  the  ploughed  fields,  and  yet 
between  city  streets  it  would  bring  only  dust  and 
discomfort." 

She  threw  back  her  head,  looking  up  into  the 
sky,  where  a  bird  passed. 

"Will  you  get  into  the  cart  now?"  he  asked  after 
a  moment,  vaguely  troubled  by  the  silence  and  by 
the  gentleness  of  her  upward  look,  "or  do  you  wish 
to  walk  to  the  top  of  the  hill?" 

She  turned  and  moved  quickly  on  again. 

"It  is  such  a  little  way,  let  us  walk,"  she  replied, 
and  then  with  a  laugh  she  offered  an  explanation  of 


THE  UNFORESEEN  341 

her  presence.  "I  wrote  twice,  but  I  had  no  answer," 
she  said;  "then  I  decided  to  come,  and  telegraphed, 
but  they  handed  me  my  telegram  and  rny  last  letter 
at  the  cross-roads.  Can  something  have  happened, 
do  you  think  ?  or  is  it  merely  carelessness  that  keeps 
them  from  sending  for  the  mail?" 

"I  hardly  know;  but  they  are  all  alive,  at  least. 
You  have  come  straight  from — where?" 

"From  abroad.  I  lived  there  for  six  years, 
first  in  one  place,  then  in  another — chiefly  in  Italy. 
My  husband  died  eighteen  months  ago,  but  I  stayed 
on  with  his  people.  It  seemed  then  that  they 
needed  me  most,  but  one  can  never  tell,  and 
I  may  have  made  a  mistake  in  not  coming  home 
sooner." 

"I  think  you  did,"  he  said  quietly,  running  the 
end  of  his  long  whip  through  his  fingers. 

She  flashed  a  disturbed  glance  at  him. 

"Is  it  possible  that  you  are  keeping  something 
from  me?     Is  any  one  ill?" 

"Not  that  I  have  heard  of,  but  I  never  see  any 
of  them,  you  know,  except  your  brother." 

"And  he  is  married.  They  told  me  so  at  the 
cross-roads.  I  can't  understand  why  they  did  not 
let  me  know." 

"It  was  very  sudden — they  went  to  Washington.  " 

"How  queer!     Who  is  the  girl,   I  wonder?" 

"Her  name  was  Molly  Peterkin — old  Sol's  daughter ; 
you  may  remember  him." 

She  shook  her  head.  "No;  I've  lived  here  so 
little,  you  see.     What  is  she  like?" 

"A  beauty,  with  blue  eyes  and  yellow  hair." 

"Indeed?     And  are  they  happy?" 


342  THE  DELIVERANCE 

He  laughed.  "They  are  in  love — or  were,  six 
months  ago." 

"You  are  cynical.    But  do  they  live  at  the  Hall?" 

"Not  yet.  Your  grandfather  has  not  spoken  to 
Will  since  the  marriage,  and  that  was  last  August." 

"Where,  under  heaven,  do  they  live,  then?" 

"On  a  little  farm  he  has  given  them  adjoining 
Sol's.  I  believe  he  means  that  they  shall  raise 
tobacco  for  a  living." 

She  made  a  gesture  of  distress.  "Oh,  I  ought  to 
have  come  home  long  ago  !" 

"What  difference  would  that  have  made:  you 
could  have  done  nothing.  A  thunderbolt  falling 
at  his  feet  doesn't  sober  a  man  when  he  is  in  love." 

"I  might  have  helped — one  never  knows.  At 
least  I  should  have  been  at  my  post,  for,  after  all, 
the  ties  of  blood  are  the  strongest  claims  we  have." 

"Why  should  they  be?"  he  questioned,  with 
sudden  bitterness.  "You  are  more  like  that  swallow 
flying  up  there  than  you  are  like  any  Fletcher  that 
ever  lived." 

She  smiled.  "I  thought  so  once,"  she  answered, 
"but  now  I  know  better.  The  likeness  must  be 
there,  and  I  am  going  to  find  it." 

"You  will  never  find  it,"  he  insisted,  "for  there  is 
nothing  of  them  in  you — nothing." 

"You  don't  like  them,  I  remember." 

"Nor  do  yoii." 

A  laugh  broke  from  her  and  humour  rippled  in 
her  eyes. 

"So  you  still  persist  in  the  truth,  and  in  the  plain 
truth!"  she  exclaimed. 

"Then  it  is  so,  you  confess  it ? " 


waited  for  the  oxen  to  reach  the  summit  of 
the  hill." 


THE  UNFORESEEN  343 

"No  no,  no,"  she  protested.  "Why,  I  love 
them  all-all,  do  you  hear,  and  Ijove  Will  more 
than  the  rest  of  them  put  together." 

He    looked    away    from    her,    and  then,  turning, 

waited  for  the  oxen  to  reach  the  summit  of  the  hill. 

"You'd   better    get    in    now,    I    think,"    he    said, 

"there  is  a  long  walk  ahead  of  us,  and  if  my  team  is 

slow  it  is  sure  also." 

As  he  brought  the  oxen  to  a  halt,  she  laid  her  hand 
for  an  instant  on  his  arm,  and,  mounting  lightly  upon 
the  wheel,  stepped  into  the  cart. 

"Now  give  me  Agag,"  she  said,  and  he  handed 
her  the  little  dog  before  he  took  up  the  ropes  and 
settled  himself  beside  her  on  the  driver's  seat.  You 
look  like  one  of  the  disinherited  princesses  m  the 
old  stories  mother  tells,"  he  observed. 

A  puzzled  wonder  was  in  her  face  as  she  turned 

toward  him.  , 

"Who  are  you?     And  what  has  Blake  Hall  to  do 

with  your  family?"  she  asked. 

"Only  that  it  was  named  after  us.     We  used  to 

live  there." 

"Within  your  recollection?" 

He  nodded,  with  his  eyes  on  the  slow  oxen. ^ 

"Then  you  have  not  always  been  a  farmer  r" 

"Ever  since  I  was  ten  years  old." 

"I  can't  understand,  I  can't  understand,"  she 
said,  perplexed.  "You  are  like  no  one  about  here; 
you 'are  like  no  one  I  have  ever  seen." 

"Then  I  must  be  like  you,"  he  returned  bluntly. 

"Like  me?     Oh,  heavens,  no;  you  would    make 

three  of  me-body,  brain,  and  soul.     I  believe,  when 

I  think  of  it,  that  you  are  the  biggest  man  I  ve  ever 


344  THE  DELIVERANCE 

known — and  by  that  I  don't  mean  in  height — for 
I  have  seen  men  with  a  greater  number  of  physical 
inches.  Inches,  somehow,  have  very  little  to  do 
with  the  impression — and  so  has  muscle,  strong  as 
^  yours  is.  It  is  simple  bigness  that  I  am  talking 
about,  and  it  was  the  first  thing  I  noticed  in  you " 

"At  the  cross-roads?"  he  asked,  and  instantly 
regretted  his  words. 

"No;  not  at  the  cross-roads,"  she  answered, 
smiling.  "You  have  a  good  memory,  but  mine  is 
better.  I  saw  you  once  on  a  June  morning,  when  I 
was  riding  along  the  road  with  the  chestnuts  and 
you  were  standing  out  in  the  field." 

"I  did  not  see  you  or  I  should  have  remembered," 
he  said  quietly. 

Silence  fell  between  them,  and  he  was  conscious 
in  every  fiber  of  his  body  that  he  had  never  been  so 
close  to  her  before — had  never  felt  the  touch  of  her 
arm  upon  his  own,  nor  the  folds  of  her  skirt  brushing 
against  his  knees.  A  gust  of  wind  whipped  the 
end  of  her  veil  into  his  face,  and  when  she  turned 
to  recapture  it  he  felt  her  warm  breath  on  his  cheek. 
The  sense  of  her  nearness  pervaded  him  from  head 
to  foot,  and  an  unrest  like  that  produced  by  the 
spring  wind  troubled  his  heart.  He  did  not  look 
at  her,  and  yet  he  saw  her  full  dark  eyes  and  the 
curve  of  her  white  throat  more  distinctly  than  he 
beheld  the  blue  sky  at  which  he  gazed.  Was  it 
possible  that  she,  too,  shared  his  disquietude?  he 
wondered,  or  was  the  silence  that  she  kept  as  undis- 
turbed as  her  tranquil  pose? 

"I  should  not  have  forgotten  it,"  he  repeated 
presently,  turning  to  meet  her  glance. 


THE  UNFORESEEN  345 

She  started  and  looked  away  from  the  landscape. 
"You  have  long  memories  in  this  county,  I  know," 
she  said.  "So  few  things  happen  that  it  becomes 
a  religion  to  cherish  the  little  incidents.  It  may  be 
that  I,  too,  have  inherited  something  of  this,  for  I 
remember  very  clearly  the  few  months  I  spent 
here." 

"You  remembered  them  even  while  you  were 
away?" 

"Why  not?"  she  asked.  "It  is  not  the  moving 
about,  the  strange  places  one  sees,  nor  the  people 
one  meets,  that  really  count  in  life,  you  know." 

"What  is  it?"  he  questioned  abruptly. 

She  hesitated  as  if  trying  to  put  her  thoughts 
more  clearly  into  words. 

"I  think  it  is  the  things  one  learns,"  she  said; 
"the  places  in  which  we  take  root  and  grow,  and  the 
people  who  teach  us  what  is  really  worth  while — 
patience,  and  charity,  and  the  beauty  there  is  in 
the  simplest  and  most  common  lives  when  they  are 
lived  close  to  Nature." 

"In  driving  the  plough  or  in  picking  the  suckers 
from  a  tobacco  plant,"  he  added  scornfully. 

"In  those  things,  yes;  and  in  any  life  that  is 
good,  and  true,  and  natural." 

"Well,  I  have  lived  near  enough  to  Nature  to  hate 
her  with  all  my  might,"  he  answered,  not  without 
bitterness.  "Why,  there  are  times  when  I'd  like 
to  kick  every  ploughed  field  I  see  out  into  eternity. 
Tobacco-growing  is  one  of  the  natural  things,  I 
suppose,  but  if  you  want  to  see  any  beauty  in  it  you 
must  watch  it  from  a  shady  road.  When  you  get 
in  the  midst  of  it  you'll  find  it  coarse  and  sticky, 


346  THE  DELIVERANCE 

and  given  over  generally  to  worms.  I  have  spent 
my  whole  life  working  on  it,  and  to  this  day  I  never 
look  at  a  plant  nor  smell  a  pipe  without  a  shiver 
of  disgust.  The  things  I  want  are  over  there,"  he 
finished,  pointing  with  his  whip-handle  to  the  clear 
horizon.  "I  want  the  excitement  that  makes  one's 
blood  run  like  wine." 

"Battle,  murder,  and  all  that,  I  suppose?"  she 
said,  smiling. 

"War,  and  fame,  and  love,"  he  corrected. 

Her  face  had  grown  grave,  and  in  the  thoughtful 
look  she  turned  upon  him  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
saw  a  purpose  slowly  take  form.  So  earnest  was 
her  gaze  that  at  last  his  own  fell  before  it,  at  which 
she  murmured  a  confused  apology,  like  one  forcibly 
awakened  from  a  dream. 

' '  I  was  wondering  what  that  other  life  would  have 
made  of  you,"  she  said;  "the  life  that  I  have  known 
and  wearied  of — a  life  of  petty  shams,  of  sham 
love,  of  sham  hate,  of  sham  religion.  It  is  all  little, 
you  know,  and  it  takes  a  little  soul  to  keep  alive 
in  it.  I  craved  it  once  myself,  and  it  took  six  years 
of  artifice  to  teach  me  that  I  loved  a  plain  truth 
better  than  a  pretty  lie." 

He  had  been  looking  at  the  strong  white  hand 
lying  in  her  lap,  and  now,  with  a  laugh,  he  held  out 
his  own  bronzed  and  roughened  one. 

"There  is  the  difference,"  he  said;  "do  you  see  it?" 

A  wave  of  sympathy  swept  over  her  expressive 
face,  and  with  one  of  her  impulsive  gestures,  which 
seemed  always  to  convey  some  spiritual  significance, 
she  touched  his  outstretched  palm  with  her  fingers. 

"How  full  of  meaning  it  is,"  she  replied,  "for  it 


THE  UNFORESEEN  347 

tells  of  quiet  days  in  the  fields,  and  of  a  courage 
that  has  not  faltered  before  the  thing  it  hates.  When 
I  look  at  it  it  makes  me  feel  very  humble — and  yet 
very  proud,  too,  that  some  day  I  may  be  your  friend." 

He  shook  his  head,  with  his  eyes  on  the  sun,  which 
was  slowly  setting. 

"That  is  out  of  the  question,"  he  answered.  "You 
cannot  be  my  friend  except  for  this  single  day.  If 
I  meet  you  to-morrow  I  shall  not  know  you." 

"Because  I  am  a  Fletcher?"  she  asked,  wondering. 

"Because  you  are  a  Fletcher,  and  because  you 
would  find  me  worse  than  a  Fletcher." 

"Riddles,  riddles,"  she  protested,  laughing;  "and 
I  was  always  dull  at  guessing — but  I  may  as  well 
warn  you  now  that  I  have  come  home  determined 
to  make  a  friend  of  every  mortal  in  the  county,  man 
and  beast." 

"You'll  do  it,"  he  answered  seriously.  "I'm 
the  only  thing  about  here  that  will  resist  you.  You'll 
be  everybody's  friend  but  mine." 

She  caught  and  held  his  gaze.  "Let  us  see,"  she 
responded  quietly. 

For  a  time  they  were  silent,  and  spreading  out  her 
skirt,  she  made  a  place  for  the  dog  upon  it.  The 
noise  of  the  heavy  wheels  on  the  rocky  bed  of  the 
road  grew  suddenly  louder  in  his  ears,  and  he  realised 
with  a  pang  that  every  jolt  of  the  cart  carried  him 
nearer  the  end.  With  the  thought  there  came  to 
him  a  wish  that  life  might  pause  at  the  instant — that 
the  earth  might  be  arrested  in  its  passage  and  leave 
him  forever  aware  of  the  warm  contact  that  thrilled 
through  him. 

They  had  already  passed  Weatherby's  lane,   and 


348  THE  DELIVERANCE 

presently  the  chimneys  of  Blake  Hall  appeared 
above  the  distant  trees.  When  they  reached  the 
abandoned  ice-pond  Christopher  spoke  with  an 
attempted   carelessness. 

"It  would  perhaps  be  better  for  you  to  walk  the 
rest  of  the  way,"  he  said.  "Trouble  might  be 
made  in  the  beginning  if  your  grandfather  were 
to  know  that  I  brought  you  over." 

"You're  right,  I  think,"  she  said,  and  rising  as  the 
cart  stopped,  she  followed  him  down  into  the  road. 
Then  with  a  word  or  two  of  thanks,  she  smiled 
brightly,  and,  calling  the  dog,  passed  rapidly  into 
the  twilight  which  stretched  between  him  and 
a  single  shining  window  that  was  visible  in  the  Hall. 

After  she  had  quite  disappeared  he  still  stood 
motionless  by  the  ice-pond,  staring  into  the  dusk 
that  had  swallowed  her  up  from  his  gaze.  So  long 
did  he  remain  there  that  at  last  the  oxen  tired  of 
waiting  and  began  to  move  slowly  on  along  the 
sunken  road.  Then  starting  abruptly  from  his 
meditation,  he  picked  up  the  ropes  that  trailed 
before  him  on  the  ground  and  fell  into  his  accustomed 
walk  beside  the  cart.  At  the  moment  it  seemed  to 
him  that  his  whole  life  was  shattered  into  pieces  by 
the  event  of  a  single  instant.  Something  stronger 
than  himself  had  shaken  the  foundations  of  his 
nature,  and  he  was  not  the  man  that  he  had  been 
before.  He  was  like  one  born  blind,  who,  when 
his  eyes  are  opened,  is  ignorant  that  the  light 
which  dazzles  him  is  merely  the  shining  of  the  sun. 

When  he  came  into  the  house,  after  putting  up 
the  oxen,  Cynthia  commented  upon  the  dazed  look 
that  he  wore. 


THE  UNFORESEEN  349 

"You  must  have  fallen  asleep  on  the  way  home," 
she   remarked. 

"It  is  the  glare  of  the  lamp,"  he  answered.  "I 
have  just  come  out  of  the  darkness,"  and  before 
sitting  down  to  his  supper,  he  opened  the  door  and 
listened  for  the  sound  of  his  mother's  voice. 

"She  is  asleep,  then?"  he  said,  coming  back  again. 
"Has  she  recognised  either  of  you  to-day?" 

"No;  she  wanders  again.  The  present  is  nothing 
to  her  any  longer — it  is  all  blotted  out  with 
everything  that  Fletcher  told  her.  She  asks  for 
father  constantly,  and  the  only  thing  that  in- 
terested her  was  when  Jim  went  in  and  talked 
to  her  about  farming.  She  is  quite  rational  ex- 
cept that  she  has  entirely  forgotten  the  last 
twenty  years,  and  just  before  falling  asleep  she 
laughed  heartily  over  some  old  stories  of  Grandpa 
Bolivar's." 

' '  Then  I  may  see  her  for  a  minute  ? ' ' 

"If  you  wish  it — yes." 

Passing  along  the  hall,  he  entered  the  little  chamber 
where  the  old  lady  lay  asleep  in  her  tester  bed. 
Her  fine  white  hair  was  brushed  over  the  pillow, 
and  her  drawn  and  yellowed  face  wore  a  placid 
and  childlike  look.  As  he  paused  beside  her  a 
faint  smile  nickered  about  her  mouth  and  her  delicate 
hand  trembled  slightly  upon  the  couterpane.  Her 
dreams  had  evidently  brought  her  happiness,  and 
as  he  stood  looking  down  upon  her  the  wish  entered 
his  heart  that  he  might  change  his  young  life  for 
her  old  one — that  he  might  become,  in  her  place, 
half  dead,  and  done  with  all  that  the  future  could 
bring  of  either  joy  or  grief. 


CHAPTER   II 

Maria    Returns    to    the    Hall 

Through  the  grove  of  oaks  a  single  lighted  window 
glimmered  now  red,  now  yellow,  as  lamplight  struggled 
with  firelight  inside,  and  Maria,  walking  rapidly 
through  the  dark,  felt  that  the  comfortable  warmth 
shining  on  the  panes  was  her  first  welcome  home. 
The  night  had  grown  chilly,  and  she  gathered  her 
wraps  closely  together  as  she  hastened  along  the 
gravelled  drive  and  ran  up  the  broad  stone  steps 
to  the  closed  door.  There  was  no  answer  to  her 
knock,  and,  finding  that  the  big  silver  handle  of 
the  door  turned  easily,  she  entered  the  hall  and  passed 
cautiously  through  the  dusk  that  enveloped  the 
great  staircase.  Her  foot  was  on  the  first  step, 
when  a  stream  of  light  issued  suddenly  from  the 
dining-room,  and,  turning,  she  stood  for  an  instant 
hesitating  upon  the  threshold. 

A  lamp  burned  dimly  in  the  center  of  the  old 
mahogany  table,  where  a  scant  supper  for  two  had 
been  hastily  laid.  In  the  fireplace  a  single  hickory 
log  sent  out  a  shower  of  fine  sparks,  which  hovered 
a  moment  in  the  air  before  they  were  sucked  up 
by  the  big  stone  chimney. 

The  room  was  just  as  Maria  had  left  it  six  years 
before,    and   yet   in   some  unaccountable  fashion  it 

3Si 


352  THE  DELIVERANCE 

seemed  to  have  lost  the  dignity  which  she  remembered 
as  its  one  redeeming  feature.  Nothing  was  changed 
that  she  could  see — the  furniture  stood  in  the  same 
places,  the  same  hard  engravings  hung  on  the  dis- 
coloured walls — but  as  she  glanced  wonderingly 
about  her  she  was  aware  of  a  shock  greater  than  the 
one  she  had  nerved  herself  to  withstand.  It  was, 
after  all,  the  atmosphere  that  depressed  her,  she 
concluded  with  her  next  thought — the  general  air  of 
slovenly  unrefinement  revealed  in  the  details  of  the 
room  and  of  the  carelessly  laid  table. 

While  she  still  hesitated  uncertainly  on  the 
threshold,  the  pantry  door  opened  noiselessly  and 
Miss  Saidie  appeared,  carrying  a  glass  dish  filled  with 
preserved  watermelon  rind.  At  sight  of  Maria  she 
gave  a  start  and  a  little  scream,  and  the  dish  fell 
from  her  hands  and  crashed  upon  the  floor. 

"Sakes  alive!    Is  that  you,  Maria?" 

Hastily  crossing  the  room,  Maria  caught  the  little 
woman  in  her  arms  and  kissed  her  twice. 

"Why,  you  poor  thing!  I've  frightened  you  to 
death,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh. 

"You  did  give  me  a  turn;  that's  so,"  replied  Miss 
Saidie,  as  she  wiped  the  moisture  from  her  crimson 
face.  "It's  been  so  long  since  anybody's  come  here 
that  Malindy — she's  the  only  servant  we've  got  now — 
was  actually  afraid  to  answer  your  knock.  Then 
when  I  came  in  and  saw  you  standing  by  the  door, 
I  declare  it  almost  took  my  breath  clean  away. 
I  thought  for  a  moment  you  were  a  ghost,  you  looked 
so  dead  white  in  that  long,  black  dress." 

"Oh,  I'm  flesh  and  blood,  never  fear,"  Maria 
assured  her.     "Much  more  flesh  and  blood,  too,  than 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       353 

I  was  when  I  went  away — but  I've  made  you  spill 
all  your  preserves.     What  a  shame!" 

Miss  Saidie  glanced  down  a  little  nervously.  "I 
must  wipe  it  up  before  Brother  Bill  comes  in,"  she 
said;  "it  frets  him  so  to  see  a  waste." 

Picking  up  a  dust-cloth  she  had  left  on  a  chair, 
she  got  down  on  her  knees  and  began  mopping  up 
the  sticky  syrup  which  trickled  along  the  floor. 
"He  hates  so  to  throw  away  anything,"  she  pursued, 
panting  softly  from  her  exertions,  "that  if  he  were 
to  see  this  I  believe  it  would  upset  him  for  a  week. 
Oh,  he  didn't  use  to  be  like  that,  I  know,"  she  added, 
meeting  Maria's  amazed  look;  "and  it  does  seem 
strange,  for  I'm  sure  he  gets  richer  and  richer  every 
day — but  it's  the  gospel  truth  that  every  cent  he 
makes  he  hugs  closer  than  he  did  the  last.  I  declare, 
I've  seen  him  haggle  for  an  hour  over  the  price  of 
salt,  and  it  turns  him  positively  sick  to  see  anything 
but  specked  potatoes  on  the  table.  He  kinder  thinks 
his  money  is  all  he's  got,  I  reckon,  so  he  holds  on  to 
it  like  grim  death." 

"But  it  isn't  all  he  has.     Where's  Will?" 

Miss  Saidie  shook  her  head,  with  a  glance  in  the 
direction  of  the  door. 

"Don't  mention  him  if  you  want  any  peace," 
she  said,  rising  with  difficulty  to  her  feet.  "Your 
grandpa  has  never  so  much  as  laid  eyes  on  him  sence 
he  gave  him  that  little  worn-out  place  side  by  side 
with  Sol  Peterkin— and  told  him  he'd  shoot  him  if 
he  ever  caught  sight  of  him  at  the  Hall.  You've 
come  home  to  awful  worry,  thar's  no  doubt  of  it, 
Maria." 

"Oh,  oh,  oh,"  sighed  Maria,  and,  tossing  her  hat 


354  THE  DELIVERANCE 

upon  the  sofa,  pressed  her  fingers  on  her  temples. 
With  the  firelight  thrown  full  on  the  ivory  pallor 
of  her  face,  the  effect  she  produced  was  almost 
unreal  in  its  intensity  of  black  and  white — an  absence 
of  colour  which  had  in  it  all  the  warmth  and  the 
animation  we  are  used  to  associate  with  brilliant 
hues.  A  peculiar  mellowness  of  temperament,  the 
expression  of  a  passionate  nature  confirmed  in 
sympathy,  shone  in  the  softened  fervour  of  her  look 
as  she  bent  her  eyes  thoughtfully  upon  the  flames. 

"Something  must  be  done  for  Will,"  she  said, 
turning  presently.  "This  can't  go  on  another 
day." 

Miss  Saidie  caught  her  breath  sharply,  and  hastened 
to  the  head  of  the  table,  as  Fletcher's  heavy  footsteps 
crossed  the  hall. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  be  careful,"  she  whispered 
warningly,  jerking  her  head  nervously  from  side  to 
side. 

Fletcher  entered  with  a  black  look,  slamming  the 
door  heavily  behind  him,  then,  suddenly  catching 
sight  of  Maria,  he  stopped  short  on  the  threshold 
and  stared  at  her  with  hanging  jaws. 

"I'll  be  blessed  if  it  ain't  Maria  !"  he  broke  out  at 
last. 

Maria  went  toward  him  and  held  out  her  cheek  for 
his  kiss. 

"I've  surprised  you  almost  as  much  as  I  did  Aunt 
Saidie,"  she  said,  with  her  cheerful  laugh,  which 
floated  a  little  strangely  on  the  sullen  atmosphere. 

Catching  her  by  the  shoulder,  Fletcher  drew  her 
into  the  circle  of  the  lamplight,  where  he  stood 
regarding  her  in  gloomy  silence. 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       355 

"You've  filled  out  considerable,"  he  remarked, 
as  he  released  her  at  the  end  of  his  long  scrutiny. 
"But  thar  was  room  for  it,  heaven  knows.  You'll 
never  be  the  sort  that  a  man  smacks  his  lips  over,  I 
reckon,  but  you're  a  plum  sight  better  looking  than 
you  were  when  you  went  away." 

Maria  winced  quickly  as  if  he  had  struck  her; 
then,  regaining  her  composure  almost  instantly, 
she  drew  back  her  chair  with  a  casual  retort. 

"But  I  didn't  come  home  to  set  the  county 
afire,"  she  said.  "Why,  Aunt  Saidie,  what  queer, 
coarse  china !  What's  become  of  the  white-and-gold 
set  I  used  to  like  ? ' ' 

A  purple  flush  mounted  slowly  to  Miss  Saidie 's 
forehead. 

"I  was  afraid  it  would  chip,  so  I  packed  it  away," 
she  explained.  "Me  and  Brother  Bill  ain't  used  to 
any  better  than  this,  so  we  don't  notice.  Things 
will  have  to  be  mighty  fine  now,  I  reckon,  since  you've 
got  back.  You  were  always  particular  about  looks, 
I  remember." 

"Was  I?"  asked  Maria  curiously,  glancing  down 
into  the  plate  before  her.  For  the  last  few  years  she 
had  schooled  herself  to  despise  what  she  called  the 
"silly  luxuries  of  living,"  and  yet  the  heavy  white 
cup  which  Miss  Saidie  handed  her,  and  the  sound 
of  Fletcher  drinking  his  coffee,  aroused  in  her  the 
old  poignant  disgust. 

"I  don't  think  I'm  over  particular  now,"  she 
added  pleasantly,  "but  we  may  as  well  get  out  the 
other  china  to-morrow,  I  think." 

"You  won't  find  many  fancy  ways  here — eh, 
Saidie  ?"  inquired  Fletcher,  with  a  chuckle.     "  Thar's 


356  THE  DELIVERANCE 

been  a  precious  waste  of  victuals  on  this  place,  but 
it's  got  to  stop.  I  ain't  so  sure  you  did  a  wise  thing 
in  coming  back,"  he  finished  abruptly,  turning  his 
bloodshot  eyes  on  his  granddaughter. 
*  "You  aren't?  Well,  I  am,"  laughed  Maria;  "and 
I  promise  you  that  you  shan't  find  me  troublesome 
except  in  the  matter  of  china." 

"Then  you  must  have  changed  your  skin,  I  reckon." 

"Changed?  Why,  I  have,  of  course.  Six  years 
isn't  a  day,  you  know,  and  I've  been  in  many  places." 
Then,  as  a  hint  of  interest  awoke  in  his  eyes,  she 
talked  on  rapidly,  describing  her  years  abroad  and 
the  strange  cities  in  which  she  had  lived.  Before 
she  had  finished,  Fletcher  had  pushed  his  plate  away 
and  sat  listening  with  the  ghost  of  a  smile  upon 
his  face. 

"Well,  you'll  do,  I  reckon,"  he  said  at  the  end, 
and,  pushing  back  his  chair,  he  rose  from  his  place 
and  stamped  out  into  the  hall. 

When  he  had  gone  into  his  sitting-room  and 
closed  the  door  behind  him,  Miss  Saidie  nodded 
smilingly,  as  she  measured  out  the  servant's  sugar 
in  a  cracked  saucer.  "He's  brighter  than  I've  seen 
him  for  days,"  she  said;  "and  now,  if  you  want  to  go 
upstairs,  Malindy  has  jest  lighted  your  fire.  She  had 
to  carry  the  wood  up  while  we  were  at  supper^  so 
Brother  Bill  wouldn't  see  it.  He  hates  even  to 
burn  a  log,  though  they  are  strewn  round  loose  all 
over  the  place." 

Maria  was  feeding  Agag  on  the  hearth,  and  she 
waited  until  he  had  finished  before  she  took  up  her 
hat  and  wraps  and  went  toward  the  door.  "Oh, 
you  needn't  bother  to  light  me,"  she  said,  waving  Miss 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       357 

Saidie  back  when  she  would  have  followed.  "Why, 
I  could  find  my  way  over  this  house  at  midnight 
without  a  candle."  Then,  with  a  cheerful  "Good- 
night," she  called  Agag  and  went  up  the  dusky 
staircase. 

A  wood  fire  was  burning  in  her  room,  and  she 
stood  for  a  moment  looking  pensively  into  the  flames, 
a  faint  smile  sketched  about  her  mouth.  Then 
throwing  off  her  black  dress  in  the  desire  for  freedom, 
she  clasped  her  hands  above  her  head  and  paced 
slowly  up  and  down  the  shadowy  length  of  the  room. 
In  the  flowing  measure  of  her  walk;  in  the  free,  almost 
defiant,  movement  of  her  upraised  arms;  and  in  the 
ample  lines  of  her  throat  and  bosom,  which  melted 
gradually  into  the  low  curves  of  her  hips,  she  might 
have  stood  for  an  incarnation  of  vital  force.  One 
felt  instinctively  that  her  personality  would  be 
active  rather  than  passive — that  the  events  which 
she  attracted  to  herself  would  be  profoundly  emotional 
in  their  fulfilment. 

Notwithstanding  the  depressing  hour  she  had  just 
passed,  and  the  old  vulgarity  which  had  shocked 
her  with  a  new  violence,  she  was  conscious,  moving 
to  and  fro  in  the  shadows,  of  a  strange  happiness — 
of  a  warmth  of  feeling  which  pervaded  her  from  head 
to  foot,  which  fluttered  in  her  temples  and  burned 
like  firelight  in  her  open  palms.  The  place  was 
home  to  her,  she  realised  at  last,  and  the  surroundings 
of  her  married  life — the  foreign  towns  and  the 
enchanting  Italian  scenery — showed  in  her  memory 
with  a  distant  and  alien  beauty.  Here  was  what  she 
loved,  for  here  was  her  right,  her  heritage — the 
desolate  red  roads,  the  luxuriant  tobacco  fields,  the 


358  THE  DELIVERANCE 

primitive  and  ignorant  people.     In  her  heart  there 

was  no  regret  for  any  past  that  she  had  known,  for 

over   the    wild    country    stretching    about    her    now 

there  hung  a  romantic  and  mysterious  haze. 

>•    A  little  later  she  was  aroused  from  her  reverie  by 

Miss  Saidie,  who  came  in  with  a  lighted  lamp  in  her 

hand. 

"Don't  you  need  a  light,  Maria?  I  never  could 
abide  to  sit  in  the  dark." 

"Oh,  yes;  bring  it  in.  There,  put  it  on  the  bureau 
and  sit  down  by  the  fire,  for  I  want  to  talk  to  you. 
No,  I'm  not  a  bit  tired;  I  am  only  trying  to  fit  myself 
again  in  this  room.  Why,  I  don't  believe  you've 
changed  a  pin  in  the  pincushion  since  I  went  away." 

Miss  Saidie  dusted  the  top  of  the  bureau  with  her 
apron  before  she  placed  the  tall  glass  lamp  upon  it. 

"Thar  warn't  anybody  to  stay  in  it,"  she  answered, 
as  she  sat  down  in  a  deep,  cretonne-covered  chair 
and  pushed  back  the  hickory  log  with  her  foot. 
"I  declare,  Maria,  I  don't  see  what  you  want  to 
traipse  around  with  that  little  poor-folksy  yaller  dog 
for.  He  puts  me  in  mind  of  the  one  that  old  blind 
nigger  up  the  road  used  to  have." 

"Does  he?"  asked  Maria  absently,  in  the  voice  of 
one  whose  thoughts  are  hopelessly  astray. 

She  was  standing  by  the  window,  holding  aside 
the  curtain  of  flowered  chintz,  and  after  a  moment 
she  added  curiously:  "There's  a  light  in  the  fields, 
Aunt  Saidie.     What  does  it  mean?  " 

Crossing  the  room,  Miss  Saidie  followed  the  gesture 
with  which  Maria  pointed  into  the  night. 

"That's  on  the  Blake  place,"  she  said;  "it  must  be 
Mr.  Christopher  moving  about  with  his  lantern." 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       359 

"You  call  him  Mr.  Christopher?" 

"Oh,  it  slipped  out.  His  father's  name  was 
Christopher  before  him,  and  I  used  to  open  the  gate 
for  him  when  I  was  a  child.  Many  and  many  a  time 
the  old  gentleman's  given  me  candy  out  of  his  pocket, 
or  a  quarter  to  buy  a  present,  and  one  Christmas  he 
brought  me  a  real  wax  doll  from  the  city.  He  wasn't 
old  then,  I  can  tell  you,  and  he  was  as  handsome  as 
if  he  had  stepped  out  of  a  fashion  plate.  Why, 
young  Mr.  Christopher  can't  hold  a  candle  to  him 
for  looks." 

"He  was  a  gentleman,  then  ?   I  mean  the  old  man." 

"Who?  Mr.  Christopher's  father?  I  don't  reckon 
thar  was  a  freer  or  a  finer  between  here  and  London." 

Maria's  gaze  was  still  on  the  point  of  light  which 
twinkled  faintly  here  and  there  in  the  distant  field. 

"Then  how,  in  heaven's  name,  did  he  come  to 
this?"  she  asked,  in  a  voice  that  was  hardly  louder 
than  a  whisper. 

"I  never  knew;  I  never  knew,"  protested  Miss 
Saidie,  going  back  to  her  chair  beside  the  hearth. 
"Brother  Bill  and  he  hate  each  other  worse  than 
death,  and  it  was  Will's  fancy  for  Mr.  Christopher 
that  brought  on  this  awful  trouble.  For  a  time,  I 
declare  it  looked  as  if  the  boy  was  really  bewitched, 
and  they  were  together  morning,  noon,  and  night. 
Your  grandpa  never  got  over  it,  and  I  believe  he 
blames  Mr.  Christopher  for  every  last  thing  that's 
happened — Molly  Peterkin  and  all." 

"Molly  Peterkin?"  repeated  Maria  inquiringly. 
"Why,  how  absurd  !  And,  after  all,  what  is  the  matter 
with  the  girl?"  Dropping  the  curtain,  she  came  over 
to  the  fire,  and  sat  listening  attentively  while  Miss 


360  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Saidie  told,  in  spasmodic  jerks  and  pauses,  the 
foolish  story  of  Will's  marriage. 

"Your  grandpa  will  never  forgive  him — never, 
never.  He  has  turned  him  out  for  good  and  all,  and 
'he  talks  now  of  leaving  every  cent  of  his  money  to 
foreign  missions." 

"Well,  we'll  see,"  said  Maria  soothingly.  "I'll 
go  over  there  to-morrow  and  talk  with  Will,  and 
then  I'll  try  to  bring  grandfather  to  some  kind  of 
reason.  He  can't  let  them  starve,  rich  as  he  is, 
there's  no  sense  in  that — and  if  the  worst  comes,  I 
can  at  least  share  the  little  I  have  with  them.  It  may 
supply  them  with  bread,  if  Molly  will  undertake  to 
churn  her  own  butter." 

"Then  your  money  went,  too ? " 

"The  greater  part  of  it.  Jack  was  fond  of  wild 
schemes,  you  know.     I  left  it  in  his  hands." 

She  had  pronounced  the  dead  man's  name  so 
composedly  that  Miss  Saidie,  after  an  instant's 
hesitation,  brought  herself  to  an  allusion  to  the 
girl's  loss. 

"How  you  must  miss  him,  dear,"  she  ventured 
timidly;  "even  if  he  wasn't  everything  he  should 
have  been  to  you,  he  was  still  your  husband." 

"Yes,  he  was  my  husband,"  assented  Maria 
quietly. 

"You  were  so  brave  and  so  patient,  and  you  stuck 
by  him  to  the  last,  as  a  wife  ought  to  do.  Then 
thar's  not  even  a  child  left  to  you  now." 

Maria  turned  slowly  toward  her  and  then  looked 
away  again  into  the  fire.  The  charred  end  of  a 
lightwood  knot  had  fallen  on  the  stones,  and,  picking 
it  up,  she  threw  it  back  into  the  flames.     "  For  a  year 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       361 

before  his  death  his  mind  was  quite  gone,"  she  said 
in  a  voice  that  quivered  slightly;  "he  had  to  be  taken 
to  an  asylum,  but  I  went  with  him  and  nursed  him 
till  he  died.  There  were  times  when  he  would  allow 
no  one  else  to  enter  his  room  or  even  bring  him  his 
meals,  I  have  sat  by  him  for  two  days  and  nights 
without  sleeping,  and  though  he  did  not  recognise 
me,  he  would  not  let  me  stir  from  my  place." 

"And  yet  he  treated  you  very  badly — even  his 
family  said  so." 

"That  is  all  over  now,  and  we  were  both  to  blame. 
I  owed  him  reparation,  and  I  made  it,  thank  God,  at 
the  last." 

As  she  raised  her  bare  arms  to  the  cushioned  back 
of  her  chair  Miss  Saidie  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  deep 
white  scar  which  ran  in  a  jagged  line  above  her  elbow. 

"Oh,  it  is  nothing,  nothing,"  said  Maria  hastily, 
clasping  her  hands  again  upon  her  knees.  "That 
part  of  my  life  is  over  and  done  with  and  may  rest 
in  peace.  I  forgave  him  then,  and  he  forgives  me 
now.  One  always  forgives  when  one  understands, 
you  know,  and  we  both  understand  to-day — he  no 
less  than  I.  The  chief  thing  was  that  we  made  a 
huge,  irretrievable  mistake — the  mistake  that  two 
people  make  when  they  think  that  love  can  be 
coddled  and  nursed  like  a  domestic  pet — when  they 
forget  that  it  goes  wild  and  free  and  comes  at  no  man's 
call.   Folly  like  that  is  its  own  punishment,  I  suppose." 

"My  dear,  my  dear,"  gasped  Miss  Saidie,  in 
awe-stricken  sympathy  before  the  wild  remorse  in 
Maria's  voice. 

' '  I  did  my  duty,  as  you  call  it ;  I  even  clung  to  it 
desperately,  and,  much  as  I  hated  it,  I  never  rebelled 


362  THE  DELIVERANCE 

for  a  single  instant.  The  nearest  I  came  to  loving 
him,  I  think,  was  when,  after  our  terrible  life  together, 
he  lay  helpless  for  a  year  and  I  was  with  him  day  and 
night.  If  I  could  have  given  him  my  strength  then, 
.brain  and  body,  I  would  have  done  it  gladly,  and  that 
agonised  compassion  was  the  strongest  feeling  I 
ever  had  for  him."  She  broke  off  for  a  long  breath, 
and  sat  looking  earnestly  at  the  amazed  little  woman 
across  from  her.  "You  could  never  understand!" 
she  exclaimed  impetuously,  "but  I  must  tell  you — 
I  must  tell  you  because  I  can't  live  with  you  day 
after  day  and  know  that  there  is  an  old  dead  lie 
between  us.  I  hate  lies,  I  have  had  so  many  of  them, 
and  I  shall  speak  the  truth  hereafter,  no  matter 
what  comes  of  it.  Anything  is  better  than  a  long, 
wearing  falsehood,  or  than  those  hideous  little  shams 
that  we  were  always  afraid  to  touch  for  fear  they 
would  melt  and  show  us  our  own  nakedness.  That 
is  what  I  loathe  about  my  life,  and  that  is  what  I've 
done  with  now  forever.  I  am  myself  now  for  the 
first  time  since  I  was  born,  and  at  last  I  shall  let  my 
own  nature  teach  me  how  to  live." 

Her  intense  pallor  was  illumined  suddenly  by  a 
white  flame,  whether  from  the  leaping  of  some  inner 
emotion  or  from  the  sinking  firelight  which  blazed 
up  fitfully  Miss  Saidie  could  not  tell.  As  she  turned 
her  head  with  an  impatient  movement  her  black 
hair  slipped  its  heavy  coil  and  spread  in  a  shadowy 
mass  upon  her  bared  shoulders. 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know  how  it  is,"  said  Miss 
Saidie,  wiping  her  eyes.  "But  I  can't  see  that  it 
makes  any  difference  whether  you  were  what  they 
call  in  love  or  not,  so  long  as  you  were  a  good,  well- 


MARIA  RETURNS  TO  THE  HALL       363 

behaved  wife.  I  don't  think  a  man  troubles  himself 
much  about  a  woman's  heart  after  he's  put  his 
wedding  ring  on  her  finger;  and  though  I  know,  of 
course,  that  thar's  a  lot  of  nonsense  spoken  in  court- 
ship, it  seems  to  me  they  mostly  take  it  out  in 
talking.  The  wives  that  I've  seen  are  generally  as 
anxious  about  thar  setting  hens  as  they  are  about  thar 
husband's  hearts,  and  I  reckon  things  are  mighty 
near  the  same  the  world  over." 

Without  noticing  her,  Maria  went  on  feverishly, 
speaking  so  low  at  times  that  the  other  almost  lost 
the  words. 

"It  is  such  a  relief  to  let  it  all  out,"  she  said, 
with  a  long,  sighing  breath,  "and  oh!  if  I  had 
loved  him  it  would  have  been  so  different — so 
different.  Then  I  might  have  saved  him;  for  what 
evil  is  strong  enough  to  contend  against  a  love 
which  would  have  borne  all  things,  have  covered  all 
things?" 

Rising  from  her  chair,  she  walked  rapidly  up  and 
down,  and  pausing  at  last  beside  the  window,  lifted 
the  curtain  and  looked  out  into  the  night. 

"I  might  have  saved  him;  I  know  it  now,"  she 
repeated  slowly:  "or  had  it  been  otherwise,  even  in 
madness  I  would  not  have  loosened  my  arms,  and 
my  service  would  have  been  the  one  passionate 
delight  left  in  my  life.  They  could  never  have  torn 
him  from  my  bosom  then,   and   yet    as   it  was — as 

it  was "     She  turned  quickly,  and,  corning  back, 

laid  her  hand  on  Miss  Saidie's  arm.  "It  is  such  a 
comfort  to  talk,  dear  Aunt  Saidie,"  she  added, 
"even  though  you  don't  understand  half  that  I 
say.     But  you  are  good — so  good ;  and  now  if  you'll 


364  THE  DELIVERANCE 

lend  me  a  nightgown  I'll  go  to  bed  and  sleep  until  my 
trunks  come  in  the  morning." 

Her  voice  had  regained  its  old  composure,  and 
Miss  Saidie,  looking  back  as  she  went  for  the  gown, 
saw  that  she  had  begun  quietly  to  braid  her  hair. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Day  Afterward 

When  Maria  awoke,  the  sun  was  full  in  her  eyes, 
and  somewhere  on  the  lawn  outside  the  first  bluebird 
was  whistling.  With  a  start,  she  sprang  out  of  bed 
and  dressed  quickly  by  the  wood  fire  which  Malindy 
had  lighted.  Then,  before  going  downstairs,  she 
raised  the  window  and  leaned  out  into  the  freshness 
of  the  morning,  where  a  white  mist  glimmered  in  the 
hollows  of  the  March  landscape.  In  the  distance  she 
saw  the  smoking  chimneys  of  the  Blake  cottage,  very 
faint  among  the  leafless  trees,  and  nearer  at  hand 
men  were  moving  back  and  forth  in  her  grandfather's 
fields.  Six  years  ago  she  would  have  found  little 
beauty  in  so  grave  and  colourless  a  scene,  but  to-day 
as  she  looked  upon  it  a  peace  such  as  she  had  never 
known  possessed  her  thoughts.  The  wisdom  of 
experience  was  hers  now,  and  with  it  she  had  gained 
something  of  the  deeper  insight  into  nature  which 
comes  to  the  soul  that  is  reconciled  with  the  unknown 
laws  which  it  obeys. 

Going  down  a  few  moments  later,  she  found  that 
breakfast  was  already  over,  and  that  Miss  Saidie 
was  washing  the  tea  things  at  the  head  of  the  bared 
table. 

"Why,  it  seems  but  a  moment  since  I  fell  asleep," 

365 


366  THE  DELIVERANCE 

said  Maria,  as  she  drew  back  her  chair.  "How  long 
has  grandfather  been  up?" 

"Since  before  daybreak.  He  is  just  starting  to 
town,  and  he's  in  a  terrible  temper  because  the  last 
batch  of  butter  ain't  up  to  the  mark,  he  says.  I'm 
sure  I  don't  see  why  it  ain't,  for  I  worked  every 
pound  of  it  with  my  own  hands — but  thar  ain't 
no  rule  for  pleasing  men,  and  never  will  be  till  God 
Almighty  sets  the  universe  rolling  upside  down. 
That's  the  wagon  you  hear  now.  Thank  heaven, 
he  won't  be  back  till  after  dark." 

With  a  gesture  of  relief  Maria  applied  herself  to 
the  buttered  waffles  before  her,  prepared  evidently 
in  her  honour,  and  then  after  a  short  silence,  in 
which  she  appeared  to  weigh  carefully  her  unuttered 
words,  she  announced  her  intention  of  paying 
immediately  her  visit  to  Will  and  Molly. 

"Oh,  you  can't,  you  can't,"  groaned  Miss  Saidie, 
nervously  mopping  out  the  inside  of  a  cup.  "For 
heaven's  sake,  don't  raise  another  cloud  of  dust  jest 
as  we're  beginning  to  see  clear  again." 

"Now  don't  tell  me  I  can't  when  I  must,"  responded 
Maria,  pushing  away  her  plate  and  rising  from  the 
table;  "there's  no  such  word  as  'can't'  when  one 
has  to,  you  know.  I'll  be  back  in  two  hours  at  the 
most,  and  oh  !  with  so  much  to  tell  you !" 

After  tying  on  her  hat  in  the  hall,  she  looked  in 
again  to  lighten  Miss  Saidie's  foreboding  by  a  tempt- 
ing bait  of  news;  but  when  she  had  descended  the 
steps  and  walked  slowly  along  the  drive  under 
the  oaks,  the  assumed  brightness  of  her  look  faded 
as  rapidly  as  the  morning  sunshine  on  the  clay  road 
before   her.      It   was    almost   with    dismay  that    she 


THE  DAY  AFTERWARD  367 

found  herself  covering  the  ground  between  the  Hall 
and  Will's  home  and  saw  the  shaded  lane  stretching 
to  the  little  farm  adjoining  Sol  Peterkin's. 

As  she  passed  the  store,  Mrs.  Spade,  who  was 
selling  white  china  buttons  to  Eliza  Field,  leaned 
over  the  counter  and  stared  in  amazement  through 
the  open  window. 

"  Bless  my  soul  an'  body,  if  thar  ain't  old  Fletcher's 
granddaughter  come  back  !  "  she  exclaimed — "  holdin' 
her  head  as  high  as  ever,  jest  as  if  her  husband 
hadn't  beat  her  black  an'  blue.  Well,  well,  times 
have  slid  down  hill  sence  I  was  a  gal,  an'  the  women 
of  to-day  ain't  got  the  modesty  they  used  to  be  born 
with.  Why,  I  remember  the  time  when  old  Mrs. 
Beale  in  the  next  county  used  to  go  to  bed  for  shame, 
with  a  mustard  plaster,  every  time  her  husband  took 
a  drop  too  much,  which  he  did  every  blessed  Saturday 
that  he  lived.  It  tided  him  over  the  Sabbath 
mighty  well,  he  used  to  say,  for  he  never  could  abide 
the  sermons  of  Mr.  Grant." 

Eliza  dropped  the  buttons  she  had  picked  up  and 
turned,  craning  her  neck  in  the  direction  of  Maria's 
vanishing  figure. 

"What  on  earth  has  she  gone  down  Sol  Peterkin's 
lane  for?"  she  inquired  suspiciously. 

"The  Lord  knows;  if  it's  to  visit  her  brother,  I 
may  say  it's  a  long  ways  mo'n  I'd  do. " 

"She  was  always  a  queer  gal  even  befo'  her  marriage 
— so  strange  an'  far-away  lookin'  that  I  declar'  it  used 
to  scare  me  half  to  death  to  meet  her  all  alone  at  dusk. 
I  never  could  help  feelin'  that  she  could  bewitch 
a  body,  if  she  wanted  to,  with  those  solemn  black 
eyes. " 


368  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"She  ain't  bewitched  me,"  returned  Mrs.  Spade 
decisively;  "an'  what's  mo',  she's  had  too  many 
misfortunes  come  to  her  to  make  me  believe  she 
ain't  done  somethin'  to  deserve  'em.  Thar's  mighty 
-few  folks  gets  worse  than  they  deserve  in  this 
world,  an'  when  you  see  a  whole  flock  of  troubles 
settle  on  a  person's  head  you  may  rest  right  sartain 
thar's  a  long  score  of  misbehaviours  up  agin  'em. 
Yes,  ma'am;  when  I  hear  of  a  big  misfortune  happenin' 
to  anybody  that  I  know,  the  first  question  that  pops 
into  my  head  is:  '  I  wonder  if  they've  broke  the  sixth 
this  time  or  jest  the  common  seventh?'  The  best 
rule  to  follow,  accordin'  to  my  way  of  thinkin',  is  to 
make  up  yo'  mind  right  firm  that  no  matter  what 
evil  falls  upon  a  person  it  ain't  nearly  so  bad  as  the 
good  Lord  ought  to  have  made  it." 

"That's  a  real  pious  way  of  lookin'  at  things,  I 
reckon, "  sighed  Eliza  deferentially,  as  she  fished 
five  cents  from  the  deep  pocket  of  her  purple  calico 
and  slapped  it  down  upon  the  counter;  "but  we  ain't 
all  such  good  church-goers  as  you,  the  mo's  the 
pity. " 

"  Oh,  I'm  moral,  an'  I  make  no  secret  of  it, "  replied 
Mrs.  Spade.  "It's  writ  plain  all  over  me,  an'  it  has 
been  ever  sence  the  day  that  I  was  born.  'That's 
as  moral  lookin'  a  baby  as  ever  I  saw, '  was  what 
Doctor  Pierson  said  to  ma  when  I  wan't  mo'n  two 
hours  old.  It  was  so  then,  an'  it's  been  so  ever  sence. 
'Virtue  may  not  take  the  place  of  beaux,'  my  po' 
ma  used  to  say,  'but  it  will  ease  her  along  mighty 

well   without    'em' Yes,  the   buttons    are   five 

cents.  To  be  sure,  I'll  watch  out  and  let  you  hear 
if  she  comes  this  way  again." 


THE  DAY  AFTERWARD  369 

Maria,  meanwhile,  happily  unconscious  of  the 
judgment  of  her  neighbours,  walked  thoughtfully 
along  the  lane  until  she  came  in  sight  of  the  small 
tumbled-down  cottage  which  had  been  Fletcher's 
wedding  gift  to  his  grandson.  A  man  in  blue  jean 
clothes  was  ploughing  the  field  on  the  left  of  the  road, 
and  it  was  only  when  something  vaguely  familiar 
in  his  dejected  attitude  caused  her  to  turn  for  a 
second  glance  that  she  realised,  with  a  pang,  that 
he  was  Will. 

At  her  startled  cry  he  looked  up  from  the  horses 
he  was  driving,  and  then,  letting  the  ropes  fall, 
came  slowly  toward  her  across  the  faint  purple 
furrows.  All  the  boyish  jauntiness  she  remembered 
was  gone  from  his  appearance;  his  reversion  to  the 
family  type  had  been  complete,  and  it  came  to  her 
with  a  shock  that  held  her  motionless  that  he  stood 
to-day  where  her  grandfather  had  stood  fifty  years 
before. 

"Will!"  she  gasped,  with  an  impulsive,  motherly 
movement  of  her  arms.  Rejecting  her  caress  with 
an  impatient  shrug,  he  stood  kicking  nervously  at 
a  clod  of  earth,  his  eyes  wavering  in  a  dispirited 
survey  of  her  face. 

"Well,  it  seems  that  we  have  both  made  a  blamed 
mess  of  things,"  he  said  at  last. 

Maria  shook  her  head,  smiling  hopefully.  "  Not  too 
bad  a  mess  to  straighten  out,  dear, "  she  answered. 
"We  must  set  to  work  at  once  and  begin  to  mend 
matters.  Ah,  if  you  had  only  written  me  how  things 
were !" 

"What  was  the  use?"  asked  Will  doggedly.  "It 
was  all  grandpa — he  turned  out  the  devil   himself, 


370  THE  DELIVERANCE 

and  there  was  no  putting  up  with  him.  He'll  live 
forever,  too;  that's  the  worst  of  it !" 

"But  you  did  anger  him  very  much,  Will — and 
you  might  so  easily  have  waited.  Surely,  you  were 
both  young  enough.  " 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  all  about  Molly,  you  know,  when 
it  comes  to  that.  Long  before  I  married  he  had 
made  my  life  a  burden  to  me.  It  all  began  with 
his  insane  jealousy  of  Christopher  Blake " 

"Of  Christopher  Blake?"  repeated  Maria,  and 
fell  a  step  away  from  him. 

"Blake  has  been  a  deuced  good  friend  to  me," 
insisted  Will;  "that's  what  the  old  man  hates — 
what  he's  hated  steadily  all  along.  The  whole 
trouble  started  when  I  wouldn't  choose  my  friends 
to  please  him;  and  when  at  last  I  undertook  to  pick 
out  my  own  wife  there  was  hell  to  pay. " 

Maria's  gaze  wandered  inquiringly  in  the  direction 
of  the  house,  which  had  a  disordered  and  thriftless 
air. 

"Is  she  here?"  she  asked,  not  without  a  slight 
nervousness  in  her  voice. 

Will  followed  her  glance,  and,  taking  off  his  big 
straw  hat,  pulled  at  the  shoestring  tied  tightly  around 
the  crown. 

"Not  now;  but  you'll  see  her  some  day,  when  she's 
dressed  up,  and  I  tell  you  she'll  be  worth  your  looking 
at.  All  she  needs  is  a  little  money  to  turn  her  into 
the  most  tearing  beauty  you  ever  saw. " 

"And  she's  not  at  home?" 

"Not  now,"  he  replied  impatiently;  "her  mother 
has  just  come  over  and  taken  her  off.  I  say,  Maria, " 
he  lowered  his  voice,  and  an  eager  look  came  into 


THE  DAY  AFTERWARD  371 

his  irresolute  face,  which  already  showed  the  effects 
of  heavy  drinking,  "this  can't  keep  up,  you  know; 
it  really  can't.  We  must  have  money,  for  there's 
a  child  coming  in  the  autumn." 

"A  child  ! "  exclaimed  Maria,  startled.  "Oh,  Will ! 
Will !"  She  glanced  round  again  at  the  barren  land- 
scape and  the  squalid  little  house;  "then  something 
must  be  done  at  once — there's  no  time  to  lose.  I'll 
speak  to  grandfather  about  it  this  very  night." 

"At  least,  there's  no  harm  in  trying,"  said  Will, 
catching  desperately  at  the  suggestion.  "Even  if 
you  don't  make  things  better,  there's  a  kind  of 
comfort  in  the  thought  that  you  can't  make  them 
worse.  We're  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill  already. 
So,  if  you  don't  pull  us  up,  at  least  you  won't  push 
us  any  farther  down. " 

"Oh,  I'll  pull  you  up,  never  fear;  but  you  must 
give  me  time.  " 

"Your  own  affairs  are  in  rather  a  muddle,  I  reckon, 
by  now? " 

"  Hopeless,  it  seems;  but  I'll  share  with  you  the 
few  hundreds  I  still  have.  I  brought  this  to-day, 
thinking  you  might  be  in  immediate  need." 

As  she  drew  the  little  roll  of  bills  from  her  pocket, 
Will  reached  out  eagerly,  and,  seizing  it  from  her, 
counted  it  greedily  in  her  presence.  "Well,  you're 
a  downright  brick,  Maria, "  he  remarked,  as  he  thrust 
it  hastily  into  his  shirt. 

Disappointment  had  chilled  Maria's  enthusiasm 
a  little,  but  the  next  instant  she  dismissed  the  feeling 
as  ungenerous,  and  slipped  her  hand  affectionately 
through  his  arm  as  he  walked  back  with  her  into 
the  road. 


372  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"I  wish  I  could  see  Molly,"  she  said  again,  her 
eyes  on  the  house,  where  she  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
bright  head  withdrawn  from  one  of  the  windows. 

"She  is  over  at  her  mother's,  I  told  you,  "  returned 
Will  irritably,  and  then,  stooping  to  kiss  her  hurriedly, 
he  added  in  a  persuasive  voice:  "Bring  the  old  man 
to  reason,  Maria;  it's  life  or  death,  remember." 

"I'll  do  my  best,  Will;  I'll  go  on  my  knees  to  him 
to-night. " 

"Does  he  dislike  you  as  much  as  ever?" 

"No;  he  rather  fancies  me,  I  think.  Last  evening 
he  grew  almost  amiable,  and  this  morning  Aunt 
Saidie  told  me  he  left  me  a  pound  of  fresh  butter 
from  the  market  jar.  If  you  only  knew  how  fond 
he's  grown  of  his  money  you  would  realise  what 
it  means. ' 

"Well,  keep  it  up,  for  God's  sake.  Humour  him 
for  all  he's  worth.  Coddle  and  coax  him  into  doing 
something  for  us,  or  dying  and  leaving  us  his  money.  " 

Maria's  face  grew  grave.  "That's  the  serious  part, 
Will;  he  talks  of  leaving  every  penny  he  has  to 
foreign  missions." 

"The  devil!"  cried  Will  furiously.  "If  he  does, 
I  hope  he'll  land  in  hell.  Don't  let  him,  Maria.  It 
all  rests  with  you.  Why,  if  he  did,  you'd  starve 
along  with  us,  wouldn't  you?" 

"Oh,  you  needn't  think  of  me — I  could  always 
teach,  you  know,  and  a  little  money  buys  a  great 
deal  of  happiness  with  me.  I  have  learned  that 
great  wealth  is  almost  as  much  of  an  evil  as  great 
poverty.  " 

"I'd  take  the  risk  of  it,  every  time;  and  he  is 
beastly  rich,  isn't  he,  Maria?" 


THE  DAY  AFTERWARD  373 

"One  of  the  very  richest  men  in  the  State,  they 
told  me  at  the  cross-roads." 

"Yet  he  has  the  insolence  to  cut  me  off  without 
a  dollar.  Look  at  this  petered-out  little  farm  he's 
given  me.  Why,  it  doesn't  bring  in  enough  to  feed 
a  darkey !" 

"We'll  hope  for  better  things,  dear;  but  you  must 
learn  to  be  patient — very  patient.  His  anger  has 
been  smothered  so  long  that  it  has  grown  almost  as 
settled  as  hate.  Aunt  Saidie  doesn't  dare  mention 
your  name  to  him,  and  she  tells  me  that  if  I  so  much 
as  speak  of  you  he'll  turn  me  out  of  doors. " 

"Then  it's  even  worse  than  I  thought." 

"Perhaps.  I  can't  say,  for  I  haven't  approached 
the  subject  even  remotely  as  yet.  Keep  your 
courage,  however,  and  I  promise  you  to  do  my  best.  " 

She  kissed  him  again,  and  then,  turning  her  face 
homeward,  started  at  a  rapid  walk  down  the  lane. 
The  interview  with  Will  had  disturbed  her  more 
than  she  liked  to  admit,  and  it  was  with  a  positive 
throb  of  pain  that  she  forced  herself  at  last  to  com- 
pare the  boy  of  five  years  ago  with  the  broken 
and  dispirited  man  from  whom  she  had  just  parted. 
Was  this  tragedy  the  end  of  the  young  ambition 
which  Fletcher  had  nursed  so  fondly,  this — a  nervous, 
overworked  tobacco-grower,  with  bloodshot  eyes, 
and  features  already  inflamed  by  reckless  drinking? 
The  tears  sprang  to  her  lashes,  and,  throwing  up 
her  hands  with  a  pathetic  gesture  of  protest,  she 
hastened  on  homeward  as  if  to  escape  the  terror 
that  pursued  her. 

She  had  turned  from  the  lane  into  the  main  road, 
and  was  just  approaching  the  great  chestnuts  which 


374  THE  DELIVERANCE 

grew  near  the  abandoned  ice-pond,  when,  looking  up 
suddenly  at  the  call  of  a  bird  above  her  head,  she 
saw  Christopher  Blake  standing  beside  the  rail  fence 
and  watching  her  with  a  strong  and  steady  gaze. 
''  Involuntarily  she  slackened  her  pace  and  waited, 
smiling  for  him  to  cross  the  fence;  but,  to  her  amaze- 
ment, after  an  instant  in  which  his  eyes  held  her  as 
if  rooted  to  the  spot,  he  turned  hastily  away  and 
walked  rapidly  in  the  opposite  direction.  For  a 
breath  she  stood  motionless,  gazing  blankly  into 
space;  then,  as  she  went  on  again,  she  knew  that 
she  carried  with  her  not  the  wonder  at  his  sudden 
flight,  but  the  clear  memory  of  that  one  moment's 
look  into  his  eyes.  A  century  of  experience,  with 
its  tears  and  its  laughter,  its  joy  and  its  anguish, 
its  desire  and  its  fulfilment,  seemed  crowded  into 
the  single  instant  that  held  her  immovable  in  the 
road. 


CHAPTER   IV 
The    Meeting   in    the    Night 

When  Christopher  turned  so  abruptly  from  Maria's 
gaze  he  was  conscious  only  of  a  desperate  impulse 
of  flight.  At  the  instant  his  strength  seemed  to 
fail  him  utterly,  and  he  realised  that  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  he  feared  to  trust  himself  to  face  the 
imminent  moment.  His  one  thought  was  to  escape 
quickly  from  her  presence,  and  in  the  suddenness  of 
his  retreat  he  did  not  weigh  the  possible  effect  upon 
her  of  his  rudeness.  A  little  later,  however,  when 
he  had  put  the  field  between  him  and  her  haunting 
eyes,  he  found  himself  returning  with  remorse  to 
his  imaginings  of  what  her  scattered  impressions 
must  have  been. 

Between  regret  and  perplexity  the  day  dragged 
through,  and  he  met  his  mother's  exacting  humours 
and  Cynthia's  wistful  inquiries  with  a  curious 
detachment  of  mind.  He  had  reached  that  middle 
state  of  any  powerful  emotion  when  even  the  external 
objects  among  which  one  moves  seem  affected  by 
the  inward  struggle  between  reason  and  desire — 
the  field  in  which  he  worked,  the  distant  landscape, 
the  familiar  faces  in  the  house,  and  those  frail, 
pathetic  gestures  of  his  mother's  hands,  all  expressed 
in  outward  forms  something  of  the  passion  which  he 

375 


376  THE  DELIVERANCE 

felt  stirring  in  his  own  breast.  It  was  in  his  nature 
to  dare  risks  blindly — to  hesitate  at  no  experience 
offered  him  in  his  narrow  life,  and  there  were  moments 
during  this  long  day  when  he  found  himself 
questioning  if  one  might  not,  after  all,  plunge  headlong 
into  the  impossible. 

As  he  rose  from  the  supper  table,  where  he  had 
pushed  his  untasted  food  impatiently  away,  he 
remembered  that  he  had  promised  in  the  morning 
to  meet  Will  Fletcher  at  the  store,  and,  lighting  his 
lantern,  he  started  out  to  keep  the  appointment  he 
had  almost  forgotten.  He  found  Will  overflowing 
with  his  domestic  troubles,  and  it  was  after  ten 
o'clock  before  they  both  came  out  upon  the  road 
and  turned  into  opposite  ways  at  the  beginning  of 
Sol  Peterkin's  lane. 

"I'll  help  you  with  the  ploughing,  of  course," 
Christopher  said,  as  they  lingered  together  a  moment 
before  parting;  "make  your  mind  quite  easy  about 
that.  I'll  be  over  at  sunrise  on  Monday  and  put 
in  a  whole  day's  job." 

Then,  as  he  fell  back  into  his  own  road,  he  found 
something  like  satisfaction  in  the  prospect  of  driving 
Will  Fletcher's  plough.  The  easy  indifference  with 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  lend  a  hand  in  a 
neighbour's  difficulty  had  always  marked  his  asso- 
ciation with  the  man  whose  ruin,  he  still  assured 
himself,  he  had  wrought. 

It  was  a  dark,  moonless  night,  with  only  a  faint, 
nebulous  whiteness  where  the  clouded  stars  shone 
overhead.  His  lantern,  swinging  lightly  from  his 
hand,  cast  a  shining  yellow  circle  on  the  ground 
before  him,  and  it  was  by  this  illumination  that  he 


THE  MEETING  IN  THE  NIGHT         377 

saw  presently,  as  he  neared  the  sunken  road  into 
which  he  was  about  to  turn,  a  portion  of  the  shadow 
by  the  ice-pond  detach  itself  from  the  surrounding 
blackness  and  drift  rapidly  to  meet  him.  In  his 
first  start  of  surprise,  he  raised  the  lantern  quickly 
above  his  head  and  waited  breathlessly  while  the 
advancing  shape  assumed  gradually  a  woman's  form. 
The  old  ghost  stories  of  his  childhood  thronged 
confusedly  into  his  brain,  and  then,  before  the  thrill- 
ing certainty  of  the  figure  before  him,  he  uttered  a 
single  joyous  exclamation: 

"You!" 

The  light  flashed  full  upon  Maria's  face,  which 
gave  back  to  him  a  white  and  tired  look.  Her  eyes 
were  heavy,  and  there  was  a  strange  solemnity 
about  them — something  that  appealed  vaguely  to 
his  religious  instinct. 

"What  in  heaven's  name  has  happened?"  he 
asked,  and  his  voice  escaped  his  control  and  trem- 
bled with  emotion. 

With  a  tired  little  laugh,  she  screened  her  eyes 
from  the  lantern. 

"I  had  a  talk  with  grandfather  about  Will,"  she 
answered,  "and  he  got  so  angry  that  he  locked  me 
out  of  doors.  He  had  had  a  worrying  day  in  town, 
and  I  think  he  hardly  knew  what  he  was  doing — 
but  he  has  put  up  the  bars  and  turned  out  the  lights, 
and  there's  really  no  way  of  getting  in." 

He  thought  for  a  moment.  "Will  you  go  on  to 
your  brother's,  or  is  it  too  far?" 

"At  first  I  started  there,  but  that  must  have  been 
hours  ago,  and  it  was  so  dark  I  got  lost  by  the 
ice-pond.     After  all,  it  would   only   make   matters 


378  THE  DELIVERANCE 

worse  if  I  saw  Will  again;  so  the  question  is,  Where 
am  I  to  sleep?" 

"At  Tom  Spade's,  then — or — "  he  hesitated  an 
instant,  "if  you  care  to  come  to  us,  my  sister  will 
gladly  find  room  for  you." 

She  shook  her  head.  "No,  no;  you  are  very  kind, 
but  I  can't  do  that.  It  is  best  that  I  shouldn't  leave 
the  place,  perhaps,  and  when  the  servant  comes 
over  at  sunrise  I  can  slip  up  into  my  room.  If 
you'll  lend  me  your  lantern  I'll  make  myself  some 
kind  of  a  bed  in  the  barn,  fortunately,  grandfather 
forgot  to  lock  the  door." 

"In  the  barn?"  he  echoed,  surprised. 

"Oh,  I  went  there  first,  but  after  I  lay  down  I 
suddenly  remembered  the  mice  and  got  up  and  came 
away.  I'm  mortally  afraid  of  mice  in  the  dark; 
but  your  lantern  will  keep  them  off,  will  it  not?" 

She  smiled  at  him  from  the  shining  circle  which 
surrounded  her  like  a  halo,  and  for  a  moment  he 
forgot  her  words  in  the  wonderful  sense  of  her 
nearness.  Around  them  the  night  stretched  like 
a  cloak,  enclosing  them  in  an  emotional  intimacy 
which  had  all  the  warmth  of  a  caress.  As  she 
leaned  back  against  the  body  of  a  tree,  and  he  drew 
forward  that  he  might  hold  the  lantern  above  her 
.  head,  the  situation  was  resolved,  in  spite  of  the  effort 
that  he  made,  into  the  eternal  problem  of  the  man 
and  the  woman.  He  was  aware  that  his  blood 
worked  rapidly  in  his  veins,  and  as  her  glance  reached 
upward  from  the  light  to  meet  his  in  the  shadow  he 
realised  with  the  swiftness  of  intuition  that  in  her 
also  the  appeal  of  the  silence  was  faced  with  a  struggle. 
They  would  ignore  it,  he  knew,  and  yet  it  shone  in 


THE  MEETING  IN  THE  NIGHT         379 

their  eyes,  quivered  in  their  voices,  and  trembled 
in  their  divided  hands ;  and  to  them  both  its  presence 
was  alive  and  evident  in  the  space  between  them. 
He  saw  her  bosom  rise  and  fall,  her  lips  part  slightly, 
and  a  tremor  disturb  the  high  serenity  of  her  self- 
control,  and  there  came  to  him  the  memory  of  their 
first  meeting  at  the  cross-roads  and  of  the  mystery 
and  the  rapture  of  his  boyish  love.  He  had  found  her 
then  the  lady  of  his  dreams,  and  now,  after  all  the 
violence  of  his  revolt  against  her,  she  was  still  to  him 
as  he  had  first  seen  her — the  woman  whose  soul 
looked  at  him  from  her  face. 

For  a  breathless  moment — for  a  single  heart-beat 
— it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  but  to  lean  down  and 
gather  her  eyes  and  lips  and  hands  to  his  embrace, 
to  feel  her  awaken  to  life  within  his  arms  and  her 
warm  blood  leap  up  beneath  his  mouth.  Then  the 
madness  left  him  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come,  and 
she  grew  strangely  white,  and  distant,  and  almost 
unreal,  in  the  spiritual  beauty  of  her  look.  He 
caught  his  breath  sharply,  and  lowered  his  gaze  to 
the  yellow  circle  that  trembled  on  the  ground. 

"But  you  will  be  afraid  even  with  the  light,"  he 
said, in  a  voice  which  had  grown  almost  expressionless. 

As  if  awaking  suddenly  from  sleep,  she  passed 
her  hand  slowly  across  he*"  pves. 

"No,  I  shall  not  be  afraid  with  the  light,"  she 
answered,  and  moved  out  into  the  road. 

"Then  let  me  hold  it  for  you — the  hill  is  very 
rocky.  " 

She  assented  silently,  and  quickened  her  steps 
down  the  long  incline;  then,  as  she  stumbled  in  the 
darkness,  he  threw  the  lantern  over  upon  her  side. 


38o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"  If  you  will  lean  on  me  I  think  I  can  steady  you, " 
he  suggested,  waiting  until  she  turned  and  laid  her 
hand  upon  his  arm.  "That's  better  now;  go  slowly 
and  leave  the  road  to  me.  How  in  thunder  did 
you  come  over  it  in  the  pitch  dark?" 

"I  fell  several  times,"  she  replied,  with  a  little 
unsteady  laugh,  "and  my  feet  are  oh!  so  hurt  and 
bruised.     To-morrow  I   shall  go  on  crutches." 

"A  bad  night's  work,  then." 

"But  not  so  bad  as  it  might  have  been,"  she 
added  cheerfully. 

"You  mean  if  I  had  not  found  you  it  would  have 
been  worse.  Well,  I'm  glad  that  much  good  has 
come  out  of  it.     I  have  spared  you  a  cold — so  that 

goes  down    to  my  credit;  otherwise But  what 

difference  does  it  make?"  he  finished  impatiently. 
' '  We  must  have  met  sooner  or  later  even  if  I  had  run 
across  the  world  instead  of  merely  across  a  tobacco 
field.  After  all,  the  world  is  no  bigger  than  a 
tobacco  field,  when  it  comes  to  destiny." 

"To  destiny?"  she  looked  up,  startled.  "Then 
there  are  fatalists  even  among  tobacco-growers?" 

He  met  her  question  with  a  laugh.  "But  I  wasn't 
always  a  tobacco-grower,  and  there  were  poets  before 
Homer,  who  is  about  the  only  one  I've  ever  read. 
It's  true  I've  tried  to  lose  the  little  education  I  ever 
had — that  I've  done  my  best  to  come  down  to  the 
level  of  my  own  cattle;  but  I'm  not  an  ox,  after  all, 
except  in  strength,  and  one  has  plenty  of  time  to 
think  when  one  works  in  the  field  all  day.  Why, 
the  fancies  I've  had  would  positively  turn  your 
head. " 

' '  Fancies — about  what  ? " 


THE  MEETING  IN  THE  NIGHT         381 

"About  life  and  death  and  the  things  one  wants 
and  can  never  get.  I  dream  dreams  and  plot 
unimaginable  evil -" 

"Not  evil,"  she  protested. 

"Whole  crops  of  it;  and  harvest  them,  too." 

"  But  why?" 

"For  pure  pleasure — -for  sheer  beastly  love  of  the 
devilment  I  can't  do.  " 

She  shook  her  head,  treating  his  words  as  a  jest. 

"There  was  never  evil  that  held  its  head  so  high.  " 

"That's  pride,  you  know." 

"Nor  that  wore  so  frank  a  face. " 

"And  that's  hypocrisy." 

"Nor  that  dared  to  be  so  rude.  " 

He  caught  up  her  laugh. 

"You  have  me  there,  I  grant  you.  What  a  brute 
I  must  have  seemed  this  morning. " 

"You  were  certainly  not  a  Chesterfield— nor  a 
Bolivar  Blake. " 

With  a  start  he  looked  down  upon  her.  "Then 
you,  too,  are  aware  of  the  old  chap  ? "  he  asked. 

"Of  Bolivar  Blake — why,  who  isn't?  I  used  to 
be  taught  one  of  his  maxims  as  a  child — '  If  you  can't 
tell  a  polite  lie,  don't  tell  any. '" 

"Good  manners,  but  rather  bad  morality,  eh?" 
he  inquired. 

"Unfortunately,  the  two  things  seem  to  run 
together,"  she  replied;  "which  encourages  me  to 
hope  that  you  will  prove  to  be  a  pattern  of  virtue.  " 

"Don't  hope  too  hard.  I  may  merely  have  lost 
the  one  trait  without  developing  the  other." 

"At  least,  it  does  no  harm  to  believe  the  best," 
she  returned  in  the  same  careless  tone. 


382  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Ahead  of  them,  where  the  great  oaks  were  massed 
darkly  against  the  sky,  he  saw  the  steep  road  splotched 
into  the  surrounding  blackness.  Her  soft  breathing 
came  to  him  from  the  obscurity  at  his  side,  and  he 
,felt  his  arm  burn  beneath  the  light  pressure  of  her 
hand.  For  the  first  time  in  his  lonely  and  isolated 
life  he  knew  the  quickened  emotion,  the  fulness  of 
experience,  which  came  to  him  with  the  touch  of 
the  woman  whom,  he  still  told  himself,  he  could 
never  love.  Not  to  love  her  had  been  so  long  for 
him  a  point  of  pride  as  well  as  of  honour  that  even 
while  the  wonderful  glow  pervaded  his  thoughts, 
while  his  pulses  drummed  madly  in  his  temples,  he 
held  himself  doggedly  to  the  illusion  that  the  appeal 
she  made  would  vanish  with  the  morning.  It  was 
a  delirium  of  the  senses,  he  still  reasoned,  and  knew 
even  as  the  lie  was  spoken  that  the  charm  which 
drew  him  to  her  was,  above  all  things,  the  spirit 
speaking  through  the  flesh. 

"I  fear  I  have  been  a  great  bother  to  you,"  said 
Maria,  after  a  moment,  "but  you  will  probably  solace 
yourself  with  the  reflection  that  destiny  would  have 
prepared  an  equal  nuisance  had  you  gone  along 
another  road. " 

"Perhaps,"  he  answered,  smiling;  "but  philosophy 
sometimes  fails  a  body,  doesn't  it?" 

"It  may  be.  I  knew  a  man  once  who  said  he 
leaned  upon  two  crutches,  philosophy  and  religion. 
When  one  broke  under  him  he  threw  his  whole 
weight  on  the  other — and  lo !  that  gave  way. " 

"Then  he  went  down,  I  suppose." 

"I  never  heard  the  end — but  if  it  wasn't  quite  so 
dark,  you  would  find  me  really  covered  with  confusion. 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   NIGHT         383 

I  have  not  only  brought  you  a  good  mile  out  of  your 
road,  but  I  am  now  prepared  to  rob  you  of  your 
light.  Can  you  possibly  find  your  way  home  in  the 
dark?" 

As  she  looked  up,  the  lantern  shone  in  his  face, 
and  she  saw  that  he  wore  a  whimsical  smile. 

"I  have  been  in  the  dark  all  my  life,"  he  answered, 
"until  to-night." 

"Until  to-night?" 

"Until  now — this  very  minute.  For  the  first 
time  for  ten  years  I  begin  to  see  my  road  at 
this  instant — to  see  where  I  have  been  walking 
all  along." 

"And  where  did  it  lead  you?" 

He  laughed  at  the  seriousness  in  her  voice. 

"Through  a  muck-heap — in  the  steps  of  my  own 
cattle.     I  am  sunk  over  the  neck  in  it  already." 

Her  tone  caught  the  lightness  of  his  and  carried 
it  off  with  gaiety. 

"But  there  is  a  way  out.     Have  you  found  it?" 

"There  is  none.  I've  wallowed  so  long  in  the 
filth  that  it  has  covered  me." 

"Surely  it  will  rub  off,"  she  said. 

For  a  moment  the  lantern's  flash  rested  upon  his 
brow  and  eyes,  relieving  them  against  the  obscurity 
which  still  enveloped  his  mouth. 

The  high-bred  lines  of  his  profile  stood  out  clear 
and  fine  as  those  of  an  ivory  carving,  and  their  verv 
beauty  saddened  the  look  she  turned  upon  him. 
Then  the  light  fell  suddenly  lower  and  revealed  the 
coarsened  jaw,  with  the  almost  insolent  strength 
of  the  closed  lips.  The  whole  effect  was  one  of 
reckless  power,  and  she  caught  her  breath  with  the 


384  THE    DELIVERANCE 

thought  that  so  compelling  a  force  might  serve 
equally  the  agencies  of  good  or  evil. 

They  had  reached  the  lawn,  and  as  he  responded  to 
her  hurried  gesture  of  silence  they  passed  the  house 
quickly  and  entered  the  great  open  door  of  the  barn. 
Here  he  hung  the  lantern  from  a  nail,  and  then, 
pulling  down  some  straw  from  a  pile  in  one  corner, 
arranged  it  into  the  rude  likeness  of  a  pallet. 

"I  don't  think  the  mice  will  trouble  you,"  he 
said  at  last,  as  he  turned  to  go,  "but  if  they  do — 
why,  just  call  out  and  I'll  come  to  slaughter " 

"You  won't  go  home,  then?"  she  asked,  amazed. 

He  nodded  carelessly. 

"Not  till'  daybreak.  Remember,  if  you  feel 
frightened,  that  I'm  within  earshot.  ' 

Then,  before  she  could  protest  or  detain  him  for  an 
explanation,  he  turned  from  her  and  went  out  into 
the  darkness. 


CHAPTER   V 

Maria  Stands  on  Christopher's  Ground 

A  broad  yellow  beam  sliding  under  the  door 
brought  Maria  into  sudden  consciousness,  and 
rising  hastily  from  the  straw,  where  her  figure  had 
shaped  an  almost  perfect  outline,  she  crossed  the 
dusky  floor  smelling  of  trodden  grain  and  went 
out  into  the  early  sunshine,  which  slanted  over 
the  gray  fields.  A  man  trundling  a  wheelbarrow 
from  the  market  garden,  and  a  milkmaid  crossing 
the  lawn  with  a  bucket  of  fresh  milk,  were  the  only 
moving  figures  in  the  landscape,  and  after  a  single 
hurried  glance  about  her  she  followed  the  straight 
road  to  the  house  and  entered  the  rear  door,  which 
Malindy  had  unlocked. 

Meeting  Fletcher  a  little  later  at  breakfast,  she 
found,  to  her  surprise,  that  he  accepted  her  presence 
without  question  and  made  absolutely  no  allusion 
to  the  heated  conversation  of  the  evening  before. 
He  looked  sullen  and  dirty,  as  if  he  had  slept  all 
night  in  his  clothes,  and  he  responded  to  Maria's  few 
good-humoured  remarks  with  a  single  abrupt  nod 
over  his  coffee-cup.  As  she  watched  him  a  feeling 
of  pity  for  his  loneliness  moved  her  heart,  and  when 
he  rose  hastily  at  last  and  strode  out  into  the  hall 
she  followed  him  and  spoke  gently  while  he  paused 

385 


386  THE  DELIVERANCE 

to  take  down  his  hat  from  one  of  the   old   antlers 
near  the  door. 

"If  I  could  only  be  of  some  use  to  you,  grand- 
father," she  said;  "are  you  sure  there  is  nothing  I 
can  do?" 

With  his  hand  still  outstretched,  he  hesitated  an 
instant  and  stood  looking  down  upon  her,  his  heavy 
features  wrinkling  into  a  grin. 

"I've  nothing  against  you  as  a  woman,"  he  re- 
sponded, "but  when  you  set  up  and  begin  to  charge 
like  a  judge,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  can  stand  you." 

"Then  I  won't  charge  any  more.  I  only  want  to 
help  you  and  to  do  what  is  best.  If  you  would  but 
let  me  make  myself  of  some  account." 

He  laughed  not  unkindly,  and  flecked  with  his 
stubby  forefinger  at  some  crumbs  which  had  lodged 
in  the  folds  of  his  cravat. 

"Then  I  reckon  you'd  better  mix  a  batch  of  dough 
and  feed  the  turkeys,"  he  replied,  and  touching  her 
shoulder  with  his  hat -brim,  he  went  hurriedly  out 
of  doors. 

When  he  had  disappeared  beyond  the  last  clump 
of  shrubbery  bordering  the  drive,  she  remembered 
the  lantern  she  had  left  hanging  in  the  barn,  and, 
going  to  look  for  it,  carried  it  upstairs  to  her  room. 
In  the  afternoon,  however,  it  occurred  to  her  that 
Christopher  would  probably  need  the  light  by 
evening,  and  swinging  the  handle  over  her  arm,  she 
set  out  across  the  newly  ploughed  fields  toward  the 
Blake  cottage.  The  stubborn  rustic  pride  which 
would  keep  him  from  returning  to  the  Hall  aroused 
in  her  a  frank,  almost  tender  amusement.  She 
had  long  ago  wearied  of  the  trivial  worldliness  of 


ON  CHRISTOPHER'S  GROUND  387 

life;  in  the  last  few  years  the  shallowness  of  passion 
had  seemed  its  crowning  insult,  and  over  the  absolute 
sincerity  of  her  own  nature  the  primal  emotion  she 
had  heard  in  Christopher's  voice  exerted  a  compelling 
charm.  The  makeshift  of  a  conventional  marriage 
had  failed  her  utterly;  her  soul  had  rejected  the 
woman's  usual  cheap  compromise  with  externals; 
and  in  her  almost  puritan  scorn  of  the  vanities  by 
which  she  was  surrounded  she  had  attained  the 
moral  elevation  which  comes  to  those  who  live  by 
an  inner  standard  of  purity  rather  than  by  outward 
forms.  In  the  largeness  of  her  nature  there  had 
been  small  room  for  regret  or  for  wasted  passion, 
and  until  her  meeting  with  Christopher  on  the  day 
of  her  homecoming  he  had  existed  in  her  imagination 
only  as  a  bright  and  impossible  memory.  Now,  as 
she  went  rapidly  forward  along  the  little  path  that 
edged  the  field,  she  found  herself  wondering  if,  after 
all,  she  had  worn  unconsciously  his  ideal  as  an 
armour  against  the  petty  temptations  and  the 
sudden  melancholies  of  the  last  six  years. 

As  she  neared  the  fence  that  divided  the  two  farms 
she  saw  him  walking  slowly  along  a  newly  turned 
furrow,  and  when  he  looked  up  she  lifted  the  lantern 
and  waved  it  in  the  air.  Quickening  his  steps,  he 
swung  himself  over  the  rail  fence  with  a  single 
bound,  and  came  to  where  she  stood  amid  a  dried 
fringe  of  last  summer's  yarrow. 

"So  you  are  none  the  worse  for  the  night  in  the 
barn?"  he  asked  anxiously. 

"Why,  I  dreamed  the  most  beautiful  dreams," 
she  replied,  "and  I  had  the  most  perfect  sleep  in  the 
world." 


388  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Then  the  mice  kept  away?" 

"At  least  they  didn't  wake  me." 

"I  stayed  within  call  until  sunrise,"  he  said 
quietly.     "You  were  not  afraid?" 

Her  rare  smile  shone  suddenly  upon  him,  illumin- 
ing the  delicate  pallor  of  her  face.  "I  knew  that 
you  were  there,"  she  answered. 

For  a  moment  he  gazed  steadily  into  her  eyes, 
then  with  a  decisive  movement  he  took  the  lantern 
from  her  hand  and  turned  as  though  about  to  go 
back  to  his  work. 

"It  was  very  kind  of  you  to  bring  this  over,"  he 
said,  pausing  beside  the  fence. 

"Kind?  Why,  what  did  you  expect?  I  knew  it 
might  hang  there  forever,  but  you  would  not  come 
for  it." 

"No,  I  should  not  have  come  for  it,"  he  replied, 
swinging  the  lantern  against  the  rails  with  such 
force  that  the  glass  shattered  and  fell  in  pieces  to 
the  ground. 

"Why,  what  a  shame  !"  said  Maria;  "and  it  is  all 
my  fault." 

A  smile  was  on  his  face  as  he  looked  at  her. 

"You  are  right — it  is  all  your  fault,"  he  repeated, 
while  his  gaze  dropped  to  the  level  of  her  lips  and 
hung  there  for  a  breathless  instant. 

With  an  effort  she  broke  the  spell  which  had  fallen 
over  her,  and,  turning  from  him,  pointed  to  the  old 
Blake  graveyard  on  the  little  hill. 

"Those  black  cedars  have  tempted  me  for  days," 
she  said.  "Will  you  tell  me  what  dust  they  guard 
so  faithfully?" 

He  followed  her  gesture  with  a  frown. 


ON  CHRISTOPHER'S  GROUND  389 

"I  will  show  you,  if  you  like,"  he  answered.  "It 
is  the  only  spot  on  earth  where  I  may  offer  you 
hospitality." 

"Your  people  are  buried  there?" 

"For  two  hundred  years.     Will  you  come?" 

While  she  hesitated,  he  tossed  the  lantern  over 
into  his  field  and  came  closer  to  her  side.  "Come," 
he  repeated  gently,  and  at  his  voice  a  faint  flush 
spread  slowly  from  her  throat  to  the  loosened  hair 
upon  her  forehead.  The  steady  glow  gave  her  face 
a  light,  a  radiance,  that  he  had  never  seen  there 
until  to-day. 

"Yes,  I  will  come  if  you  wish  it,"  she  responded 
quietly. 

Together  they  went  slowly  up  the  low,  brown 
incline  over  the  clods  of  upturned  earth.  When 
they  reached  the  bricked-up  wall,  which  had  crumbled 
away  in  places,  he  climbed  over  into  the  bed  of 
periwinkle  and  then  held  out  his  hands  to  assist  her 
in  descending.  "Here,  step  into  that  hollow,"  he 
said,  "and  don't  jump  till  I  tell  you.  Ah,  that's  it; 
now,  I'm  ready." 

At  his  words,  she  made  a  sudden  spring  forward, 
her  dress  caught  on  the  wall,  and  she  slipped  lightly 
into  his  outstretched  arms.  For  the  half  of  a  second 
he  held  her  against  his  breast;  then,  as  she  released 
herself,  he  drew  back  and  lifted  his  eyes  to  meet  the 
serene  composure  of  her  expression.  He  was  con- 
scious that  his  own  face  flamed  red  hot,  but  to  all 
outward  seeming  she  had  not  noticed  the  incident 
which  had  so  moved  him.  The  calm  distinction  of 
her  bearing  struck  him  as  forcibly  as  it  had  done  at 
their  first  meeting. 


3QO  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"What  a  solemn  place,"  she  said,  lowering  her 
voice  as  she  looked  about  her. 

For  answer  he  drew  aside  the  screening  boughs  of 
a  cedar  and  motioned  to  the  discoloured  marble  slabs 
strewn  thickly  under  the  trees. 

"Here  are  my  people,"  he  returned  gravely. 
"And  here  is  my  ground." 

Pausing,  she  glanced  down  on  his  father's  grave, 
reading  with  difficulty  the  inscription  beneath  the 
dry  dust  from  the  cedars. 

"He  lived  to  be  very  old,"  she  said,  after  a 
moment. 

"Seventy  years.  He  lived  exactly  ten  years  too 
long." 

"Too   long?" 

"Those  last  ten  years  wrecked  him.  Had  he  died 
at  sixty  he  would  have  died  happy." 

He  turned  from  her,  throwing  himself  upon  the 
carpet  of  periwinkle,  and  coming  to  where  he  lay, 
she  sat  down  on  a  granite  slab  at  his  side. 

"One  must  believe  that  there  is  a  purpose  in  it," 
she  responded,  raising  a  handful  of  fine  dust  and 
sifting  it  through  her  fingers,  "or  one  would  go  mad 
over  the  mystery  of  things." 

"Well,  I  dare  say  the  purpose  was  to  make  me  a 
tobacco-grower,"  he  replied  grimly,  "and  if  so,  it 
has  fulfilled  itself  in  a  precious  way.  Why,  there's 
never  been  a  time  since  I  was  ten  years  old  when  I 
wouldn't  have  changed  places,  and  said  'thank  you,' 
too,  with  any  one  of  those  old  fellows  over  there. 
They  were  jolly  chaps,  I  tell  you,  and  led  jolly  lives. 
It  used  to  be  said  of  them  that  they  never  won  a 
penny  nor  missed  a  kiss." 


ON  CHRISTOPHER'S  GROUND  391 

"Nor  learned  a  lesson,  evidently.  Well,  may  they 
rest  in  peace;  but  I'm  not  sure  that  their  wisdom 
would  carry  far.  There  are  better  things  than 
gaming  and  kissing,  when  all  is  said." 

"  Better  things  ?     Perhaps." 

"Have  you  not  found  them?" 

"Not  yet;  but  then,  I  can't  judge  anything  except 
tobacco,  you  know." 

For  a  long  pause  she  looked  down  into  his  upturned 
face. 

"After  all,  it  isn't  the  way  we  live  nor  the  work  we 
do  that  matters,"  she  said  slowly,  "but  the  ideal 
we  put  into  it.  Is  there  any  work  too  sordid,  too 
prosaic,  to  yield  a  return  of  beauty?" 

"Do  you  think  so?"  he  asked,  and  glanced  down 
the  hill  to  his  ploughshare  lying  in  the  ripped-up 
field.  "But  it  is  not  beauty  that  some  of  us  want, 
you  see — it's  success,  action,  happiness,  call  it  what 
you  will." 

"Surely  they  are  not  the  same.  I  have  known 
many  successful  people,  and  the  only  three  perfectly 
happy  ones  I  ever  met  were  what  the  world  calls 
failures." 

"Failures?"  he  echoed,  and  remembered  Tucker. 

Her  face  softened,  and  she  looked  beyond  him 
to  the  blue  sky,  shining  through  the  interlacing 
branches   of  bared   trees. 

"Two  were  women,"  she  pursued,  clasping  and 
unclasping  the  quiet  hands  in  her  lap,  "and  one 
was  a  Catholic  priest  who  had  been  reared  in  a 
foundling  asylum  and  educated  by  charity. 
When  I  knew  him  he  was  on  his  way  to 
a  leper  island  in  the   South   Seas,   where   he   would 


392  THE  DELIVERANCE 

be  buried  alive  for  the  remainder  of  his  life.  All 
he  had  was  an  ideal,  but  it  flooded  his  soul  with  light. 
Another  was  a  Russian  Nihilist,  a  girl  in  years  and 
yet  an  atheist  and  a  revolutionist  in  thought,  and 
her  unbelief  was  in  its  way  as  beautiful  as  the  religion 
of  my  priest.  To  return  to  Russia  meant  death; 
she  knew,  and  yet  she  went  back,  devoted  and 
exalted,  to  lay  down  her  life  for  an  illusion.  So  it 
seems,  when  one  looks  about  the  world,  that  faith 
and  doubt  are  dry  and  inanimate  forms  until  we 
pour  forth  our  heart's  blood,  which  vivifies  them." 

She  fell  silent,  and  he  started  and  touched  softly 
the  hem  of  her  black  skirt. 

"And  the  other?"  he  asked. 

"The  other  had  a  stranger  and  a  longer  story,  but 
if  you  will  listen  I'll  tell  it  to  you.  She  was  an 
Italian,  of  a  very  old  and  proud  family,  and  as  she 
possessed  rare  loveliness  and  charm,  a  marriage  was 
arranged  for  her  with  a  wealthy  nobleman,  who  had 
fallen  in  love  with  her  before  she  left  her  convent. 
She  was  a  rebellious  soul,  it  seems,  for  the  day  before 
her  wedding,  just  after  she  had  patiently  tried  on 
her  veil  and  orange  blossoms,  she  slipped  into  the 
dress  of  her  waiting-maid  and  ran  off  with  a  music- 
teacher— a  beggarly  fanatic,  they  told  me — a  man 
of  red  republican  views,  who  put  dangerous  ideas 
into  the  heads  of  the  peasantry.  From  that  moment, 
they  said,  her  life  was  over;  her  family  shut  their 
doors  upon  her,  and  she  fell  finally  so  low  as  to  be 
seen  one  evening  singing  in  the  public  streets.  Her 
story  touched  me  when  I  heard  it:  it  seemed  a 
pitiable  thing  that  a  woman  should  be  wrecked  so 
hopelessly  by  a  single  moment  of  mistaken  courage; 


ON  CHRISTOPHER'S  GROUND  393 

and  after  months  of  searching  I  at  last  found  the 
place  she  lived  in,  and  went  one  May  evening  up  the 
long  winding  staircase  to  her  apartment — two  clean, 
plain  rooms  which  looked  on  a  little  balcony  where 
there  were  pots  of  sweet  basil  and  many  pigeons. 
At  my  knock  the  door  opened,  and  I  knew  her  at 
once  in  the  beautiful  white  face  and  hands  of  the 
woman  who  stood  a  little  back  in  the  shadow.  Her 
forty  years  had  not  coarsened  her  as  they  do  most 
Italian  women,  and  her  eyes  still  held  the  unshaken 
confidence  of  extreme  youth.  Her  husband  was 
sleeping  in  the  next  room,  she  said;  he  had  but  a  few 
days  more  to  live,  and  he  had  been  steadily  dying 
for  a  year.  Then,  at  my  gesture  of  sympathy,  she 
shook  her  head  and  smiled. 

"  'I  have  had  twenty  years,'  she  said,  'and  I  have 
been  perfectly  happy.  Think  of  that  when  so  many 
women  die  without  having  even  a  single  day  of  life. 
Why,  but  for  the  one  instant  of  courage  that  saved  me, 
I  myself  might  have  known  the  world  only  as  a  vege- 
table knows  the  garden  in  which  it  fattens.  My  soul 
has  lived,  and  though  I  have  been  hungry  and  cold 
and  poorly  clad,  I  have  never  sunk  to  the  level  of 
what  they  would  have  made  me.  He  is  a  dreamer,' 
she  finished  gently,  'and  though  his  dreams  were 
nourished  upon  air,  and  never  came  true  except  in 
our  thoughts,  still  they  have  touched  even  the  most 
common  things  with  beauty.'  While  she  talked, 
he  awoke  and  called  her,  and  we  went  in  to  see  him. 
He  complained  a  little  fretfully  that  his  feet  were  cold, 
and  she  knelt  down  and  warmed  them  in  the  shawl 
upon  her  bosom.  The  mark  of  death  was  on  him, 
and  I  doubt  if  even  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength  he 


394  THE  DELIVERANCE 

were  worthy  of  the  passion  he  inspired — but  that, 
after  all,  makes  little  difference.  It  was  a  great  love, 
which  is  the  next  best  thing  to  a  great  faith." 

As  she  ended,  he  raised  his  eyes  slowly,  catching 
,the  fervour  of  her  glance. 

"It  was  more  than  that — it  was  a  great  deliver- 
ance,"  he   said. 

Then,  as  she  rose,  he  followed  her  from  the  grave- 
yard, and  they  descended  the  low  brown  hill  together. 


CHAPTER  VI 
The  Growing  Light 

By  the  end  of  the  week  a  long  rain  had  set  in,  and 
while  it  lasted  Christopher  took  down  the  tobacco 
hanging  in  the  roof  of  the  log  barn  and  laid  it  in 
smooth  piles,  pressed  down  by  boards  on  the  ground. 
The  tobacco  was  still  soft  from  the  moist  season 
when  Jim  Weatherby,  who  had  sold  his  earlier  in 
the  year,  came  over  to  help  pack  the  large  casks  for 
market,  bringing  at  the  same  time  a  piece  of  news 
concerning  Bill  Fletcher. 

' '  It  seems  Will  met  the  old  man  somewhere  on 
the  road  and  they  came  to  downright  blows,"  he 
said.  "Fletcher  broke  a  hickory  stick  over  the 
boy's  shoulders." 

Christopher  carefully  sorted  a  pile  of  plants,  and 
then,  selecting  the  finest  six  leaves,  wrapped  them 
together  by  means  of  a  smaller  one  which  he  twisted 
tightly  about  the  stems. 

"Ah,  is  that  so?"  he  returned,  with  a  troubled 
look. 

"It's  a  pretty  kettle  of  fish,  sure  enough,"  pursued 
Jim.  "Of  course,  Will  has  made  a  fool  of  himself, 
and  gone  to  the  dogs  and  all  that,  but  I  must  say  it 
does  seem  a  shame,  when  you  think  that  old  Fletcher 
can't  take  his  money  with  him  to  the  next  world. 

395 


396  THE  DELIVERANCE 

As  for  pure  stinginess,  I  don't  believe  he'd  find  his 
match  if  he  scoured  the  country.  Why,  they  say  his 
granddaughter  barely  gets  enough  to  eat.  Look 
here  !  What  are  you  putting  in  that  bad  leaf  for.  It's 
( worm-eaten  all  over." 

"So  it  is,"  admitted  Christopher,  examining  it 
with  a  laugh.  "My  eyesight  must  be  failing  me. 
But  what  good  under  heaven  does  his  money  do 
Fletcher,  after  all?" 

"Oh,  he's  saving  it  up  to  leave  to  foreign  missions, 
Tom  Spade  says.  Mr.  Carraway  is  coming  down  next 
week  to  draw  up  a  new  will." 

"And  his  grandchildren  come  in  for  nothing?" 

"It  looks  that  way — but  you  can't  see  through 
Bill  Fletcher,  so  nobody  knows.  The  funny  part  is 
that  he  has  taken  rather  a  liking  to  Mrs.  Wyndham, 
I  hear,  and  she  has  even  persuaded  him  to  raise  the 
wages  of  his  hands.  It's  a  pity  she  can't  patch  up 
a  peace  with  Will — the  quarrel  seems  to  distress  her 
very  much." 

"You  have  seen  her,  then?" 

"Yesterday,  for  a  minute.  She  stopped  me  near 
the  store  and  asked  for  news  of  Will.  There  was 
nothing  I  could  tell  her  except  that  they  dragged 
along  somehow  with  Sol  Peterkin's  help.  That's 
a  fine  woman,  Fletcher  or  no  Fletcher." 

"Well,  she  can't  help  that — it's  merely  a  question 
of  name.  There's  Cynthia  calling  us  to  dinner. 
We'll  have  to  fill  the  hogsheads  later  on." 

But  when  the  meal  was  over  and  he  was  returning 
to  his  work,  Cynthia  followed  him  with  a  message 
from  his  mother. 

"She  has  asked  for  you  all  the  morning,  Christo- 


THE  GROWING  LIGHT  397 

pher;  there's  something  on  her  mind,  though  she 
seems  quite  herself  and  in  a  very  lively  humour.  It 
is  impossible  to  get  her  away  from  the  subject  of 
marriage— she  harps  on  it  continually." 

He  had  turned  to  enter  the  house  at  her  first 
words,  but  now  his  face  clouded,  and  he  hung  back 
before  the  door. 

"Do  you  think  I'd  better  go  in?"  he  asked, 
hesitating. 

"There's  no  getting  out  of  it  without  making  her 
feel  neglected,  and  perhaps  your  visit  may  divert 
her  thoughts.  I'm  sure  I  don't  see  what  she  has  left 
to  say  on  the  subject." 

"All  right,  I'll  go,"  he  said  cheerfully;  "but  for 
heaven's  sake,  help  me  drum  up  some  fresh  topics." 

Mrs.  Blake  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  sipping  a  glass 
of  port  wine,  and  at  Christopher's  step  she  turned 
her  groping  gaze  helplessly  in  his  direction. 

"What  a  heavy  tramp  you  have,  my  son;  you  must 
be  almost  as  large  as  your  father." 

Crossing  the  room  as  lightly  as  his  rude  boots 
permitted,  Christopher  stooped  to  kiss  the  cheek  she 
held  toward  him.  The  old  lady  had  wasted  gradually 
to  the  shadow  of  herself,  and  the  firelight  from  the 
hearth  shone  through  the  unearthly  pallor  of 
her  face  and  hands.  Her  beautiful  white  hair  was 
still  arranged,  over  a  high  cushion,  in  an  elaborate 
fashion,  and  her  gown  of  fine  embroidered  linen  was 
pinned  together  with  a  delicate  cameo  brooch. 

"I  have  been  talking  very  seriously  to  Lila," 
she  began  at  once,  as  he  sat  down  by  the  bedside. 
"My  age  is  great,  you  know,  and  it  is  hardly  prob- 
able that  the  good  Lord  will  see  fit  to  leave  me  much 


3Q8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

longer  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  this  world.  Now, 
what  troubles  me  more  than  all  else  is  that  I  am 
to  die  feeling  that  the  family  will  pass  utterly  away. 
Is  it  possible  that  both  Lila  and  yourself  persist  in 
your  absurd  and  selfish  determination  to  remain 
unmarried?" 

"Oh,  mother!  mother!"  groaned  Lila  from  the 
fireplace. 

"You  needn't  interrupt  me,  Lila;  you  know  quite 
well  that  a  family  is  looked  at  askance  when  all  of 
its  members  remain  single.  Surely  one  old  maid — 
and  I  am  quite  reconciled  to  poor  Cynthia's  spinster- 
hood — is  enough  to  leaven  things,  as  your  father 
used  to  say " 

Her  memory  slipped  from  her  for  a  moment;  she 
caught  at  it  painfully,  and  a  peevish  expression 
crossed  her  face. 

"What  was  I  saying,  Lila?     I  grow  so  forgetful." 

"About  father,  dear." 

"No,  no;  I  remember  now — it  was  about  your 
marrying.  Well,  well,  as  I  said  before,  I  fear  your 
attitude  is  the  result  of  some  sentimental  fancies  you 
have  found  in  books.  My  child,  there  was  never  a 
book  yet  that  held  a  sensible  view  of  love,  and  I 
hope  you  will  pay  no  attention  to  what  they  say. 
As  for  waiting  until  you  can't  live  without  a  man 
before  you  marry  him — tut-tut !  the  only  necessary 
question  is  to  ascertain  if  you  can  possibly  live  with 
him.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  sentiment  talked  in 
life,  my  dear,  and  very  little  lived— and  my  experience 
of  the  world  has  shown  me  that  one  man  is  likely  to 
make  quite  as  good  a  husband  as  another — provided 
he  remains  a  gentleman  and  you  don't  expect  him 


THE  GROWING  LIGHT  399 

to  become  a  saint.  I've  had  a  long  marriage,  my  chil- 
dren, and  a  happy  one.  Your  father  fell  in  love  with 
me  at  his  first  glance,  and  he  did  not  hate  me  at 
his  last,  though  the  period  covered  an  association  of 
thirty  years.  We  were  an  ideal  couple,  all  things 
considered,  and  he  was  a  very  devoted  husband; 
but  to  this  day  I  have  not  ceased  to  be  thankful 
that  he  was  never  placed  in  the  position  where  he 
had  to  choose  between  me  and  his  dinner.  Honestly, 
I  may  as  well  confess  among  us  three,  it  makes  me 
nervous  when  I  think  of  the  result  of  such  a  pass." 

"Oh,  mother,"  protested  Lila  reproachfully;  "if 
I  listened  to  you  I  should  never  want  to  marry  any 
man." 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  see  why,  my  dear.  I  have 
always  urged  it  as  a  duty,  not  advised  it  as  a  pleasure. 
As  far  as  that  goes,  I  hold  to  this  day  the  highest 
opinion  of  matrimony  and  of  men,  though  I  admit, 
when  I  consider  the  attention  they  require,  I  some- 
times feel  that  women  might  select  a  better  object. 
When  the  last  word  is  said,  a  man  is  not  half  so 
satisfactory  a  domestic  pet  as  a  cat,  and  far  less  neat 
in  his  habits.  Your  poor  father  would  throw  his 
cigar  ashes  on  the  floor  to  the  day  of  his  death,  and 
I  could  never  persuade  him  to  use  an  ash-tray, 
though  I  gave  him  one  regularly  every  Christmas 
that  he  lived.  Do  you  smoke  cigars,  Christopher? 
I  detect  a  strong  odour  of  tobacco  about  you,  and  I 
hope  you  haven't  let  Tucker  persuade  you  into 
using  anything  so  vulgar  as  a  pipe.  The  worst 
effect  of  a  war,  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  is  the  excuse 
it  offers  every  man  who  fought  in  it  to  fall  into  bad 
habits." 


4oo  THE  DELIVERANCE 


"Oh,  it's  Uncle  Tucker's  pipe  you  smell,"  replied 
Christopher,  with  a  laugh,  as  he  rose  from  his  chair. 
"I  detest  the  stuff  and  always  did." 

"I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  thankful  for  it,"  said 
Mrs.  Blake,  detaining  him  by  a  gesture,  "but  I 
can't  help  recalling  a  speech  of  Micajah  Blair's,  who 
said  that  a  woman  who  didn't  flirt  and  a  man  who 
didn't,  smoke  were  unsexed  creatures.  It  is  a  com- 
mendable eccentricity,  I  suppose,  but  an  eccentricity, 
good  or  bad,  is  equally  to  be  deplored.  Your  grand- 
father always  said  that  the  man  who  was  better  than 
his  neighbours  was  quite  as  unfortunate  as  the  man 
who  was  worse.  Who  knows  but  that  your  dislike 
of  tobacco  and  your  aversion  to  marriage  may  result 
from  the  same  peculiar  quirk  in  your  brain  ?  " 

"Well,  it's  there  and  I  can't  alter  it,  even  to 
please  you,  mother,"  declared  Christopher  from  the 
door.  "I've  set  my  face  square  against  them  both, 
and  there  it  stands." 

He  went  out  laughing,  and  Mrs.  Blake  resigned 
herself  with  a  sigh  to  her  old  port. 

The  rain  fell  heavily,  whipping  up  foaming  puddles 
in  the  muddy  road  and  beating  down  the  old  rose- 
bushes in  the  yard. 

As  Christopher  paused  for  a  moment  in  the  door- 
way before  going  to  the  barn  he  drew  with  delight 
the  taste  of  the  dampness  into  his  mouth  and  the 
odour  of  the  moist  earth  into  his  nostrils.  The  world 
had  taken  on  a  new  and  appealing  beauty,  and  yet 
the  colourless  landscape  was  touched  with  a  sadness 
which  he  had  never  seen  in  external  things  until 
to-day. 

His    ears    were    now   opened    suddenly,    his    eyes 


THE  GROWING  LIGHT  401 

unbandaged,  and  he  heard  the  rhythmical  fall  of  the 
rain  and  saw  the  charm  of  the  brown  fields  with  a 
vividness  that  he  had  never  found  in  his  enjoyment 
of  a  summer's  day.  Human  life  also  moved  him  to 
responsive  sympathy,  and  he  felt  a  great  aching 
tenderness  for  his  blind  mother  and  for  his  sisters, 
with  their  narrowed  and  empty  lives.  His  own 
share  in  the  world,  he  realised,  was  but  that  of  a 
small,  insignificant  failure;  he  had  been  crushed 
down  like  a  weed  in  his  tobacco  field,  and  for  a  new 
springing-up  he  found  neither  place  nor  purpose. 
The  facts  of  his  own  life  were  not  altered  by  so 
much  as  a  shadow,  yet  on  the  outside  life  that  was 
not  his  own  he  beheld  a  wonderful  illumination. 

His  powerful  figure  filled  the  doorway,  and  Cynthia, 
coming  up  behind  him,  raised  herself  on  tiptoe  to 
touch  his  bared  head. 

"Your  hair  is  quite  wet,  Christopher;  be  sure  to 
put  on  your  hat  and  fasten  the  oilcloth  over  your 
shoulders  when  you  go  back  to  the  barn.  You  are 
so  reckless  that  you  make  me  uneasy.  Why,  the 
rain  has  soaked  entirely  through  your  shirt." 

"Oh,  I'm  a  pine  knot;  you  needn't  worry." 

She  sighed  impatiently  and  went  back  to  the 
kitchen,  while  his  gaze  travelled  slowly  along  the  wet 
gray  road  to  the  abandoned  ice-pond,  and  he  thought 
of  his  meeting  with  Maria  in  the  darkness  and  of  the 
light  of  the  lantern  shining  on  her  face.  He  remem- 
bered her  white  hands  against  her  black  dress,  her 
fervent  eyes  under  the  grave  pallor  cf  her  brow,  her 
passionate,  kind  voice,  and  her  mouth  with  the  faint 
smile  which  seemed  never  to  fade  utterly  away. 
Love,  which  is  revealed  usually  as  a  pleasant  dis- 


4o2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

turbing  sentiment  resulting  from  the  ordinary  pur- 
poses of  life,  had  come  to  him  in  the  form  of  a  great 
regenerating  force,  destroying  but  that  it  might 
rebuild  anew. 


CHAPTER  VII 

In  Which  Carraway  Speaks  the  Truth  to  Maria 

During  the  first  week  in  April  Carraway  appeared 
at  the  Hall  in  answer  to  an  urgent  request  from 
Fletcher  that  he  should,  without  delay,  put  the 
new  will  into  proper  form. 

On  the  morning  after  his  arrival,  Carraway  had 
a  long  conversation  with  the  old  man  in  his 
sitting-room,  and  when  it  was  over  he  came  out 
with  an  anxious  frown  upon  his  brow  and  went 
upstairs  to  the  library  which  Maria  had  fitted 
up  in  the  spare  room  next  her  chamber.  It  was 
the  pleasantest  spot  in  the  house,  he  had  concluded 
last  evening,  and  the  impression  returned  to  him 
as  he  entered  now  and  saw  the  light  from  the  wood 
fire  falling  on  the  shining  floor,  which  reflected  the 
stately  old  furniture,  and  the  cushions,  and  the 
window  curtains  of  faded  green.  Books  were  every- 
where, and  he  noticed  at  once  that  they  were  not 
the  kind  read  by  the  women  whom  he  knew — big 
leather  volumes  on  philosophy,  yellow-covered  French 
novels,  and  curled  edges  of  what  he  took  to  be  the 
classic  poets.  It  was  almost  with  relief  that  he 
noticed  a  dainty  feminine  touch  here  and  there — a 
work-bag  of  flowered  silk  upon  the  sofa,  a  bowl  of 
crocuses   among  the   papers   on   the   old   mahogany 

403 


404  THE  DELIVERANCE 

desk,  and  clinging  to  each  bit  of  well-worn  drapery 
in  the  room  a  faint  and  delicate  fragrance. 

Maria  was  lying  drowsily  in  a  low  chair  before  the 
fire,  and  as  he  entered  she  looked  up  with  a  smile 
and  motioned  to  a  comfortable  seat  across  the  hearth. 
A  book  was  on  her  knees,  but  she  had  not  been 
reading,  for  her  fingers  were  playing  carelessly  with 
the  uncut  leaves.  Against  her  soft  black  dress  the 
whiteness  of  her  face  and  hands  showed  almost  too 
intense  a  contrast,  and  yet  there  was  no  hint  of 
fragility  in  her  appearance.  From  head  to  foot  she 
was  abounding  with  energy,  throbbing  with  life, 
and  though  Carraway  would  still,  perhaps,  have 
hesitated  to  call  her  beautiful,  his  eyes  dwelt  with 
pleasure  on  the  noble  lines  of  her  relaxed  figure. 
Better  than  beauty,  he  admitted  the  moment  after- 
ward, was  the  charm  that  shone  for  him  in  her 
wonderfully  expressive  face— a  face  over  which  the 
experiences  of  many  lives  seemed  to  ripple  faintly  in 
what  was  hardly  more  than  the  shadow  of  a  smile. 
She  had  loved  and  suffered,  he  thought,  with  his  gaze 
upon  her,  and  from  both  love  and  suffering  she  had 
gained  that  fulness  of  nature  which  is  the  greatest 
good  that  either  has  to  yield. 

"So  it  is  serious,"  she  said  anxiously,  as  he  sat 
down. 

"I  fear  so — at  least,  where  your  brother  is  con- 
cerned. I  can't  say  just  what  the  terms  of  the  will 
are,  of  course,  but  he  made  no  secret  at  breakfast  of 
his  determination  to  leave  half  of  his  property — 
which  the  result  of  recent  investments  has  made 
very  large — to  the  cause  of  foreign  missions." 

"Yes,  he  has  told  me  about  it." 


CARRAWAY  SPEAKS  THE  TRUTH      405 

"Then  there's  nothing  more  to  be  said,  unless  you 
can  persuade  him  for  your  brother's  sake  to  destroy 
the  will  when  his  anger  has  blown  over.  I  used 
every  argument  I  could  think  of,  but  he  simply 
wouldn't  listen  to  me — swept  my  advice  aside  as  if  it 
was  so  much  wasted  breath " 

He  paused  as  Maria  bent  her  ear  attentively. 

"He  is  coming  upstairs  now!"  she  exclaimed, 
amazed. 

There  was  a  heavy  tread  on  the  staircase,  and  a 
little  later  Fletcher  came  in  and  turned  to  close  the 
door  carefully  behind  him.  He  had  recovered  for 
a  moment  his  air  of  bluff  good-humour,  and  his  face 
crinkled  into  a  ruddy  smile. 

"So  you're  hatching  schemes  between  you,  I 
reckon,"  he  observed,  and,  crossing  to  the  hearth, 
pushed  back  a  log  with  the  toe  of  his  heavy  boot. 

"It  looks  that  way,  certainly,"  replied  Carraway, 
with  his  pleasant  laugh.  "But  I  must  confess  that 
I  was  doing  nothing  more  interesting  than  admiring 
Mrs.  Wyndham's  taste  in  books." 

Fletcher  glanced  round  indifferently. 

"Well,  I  haven't  any  secrets,"  he  pursued,  still 
under  the  pressure  of  the  thought  which  had  urged 
him  upstairs,  "and  as  far  as  that  goes,  I  can  tear  up 
that  piece  of  paper  and  have  it  done  with  any  day  I 
please." 

"So  I  had  the  honour  to  advise,"  remarked 
Carraway. 

"That's  neither  here  nor  thar,  I  reckon — it's 
made  now,  and  so  it's  likely  to  stand  until  I  die, 
though  I  don't  doubt  you'll  twist  and  split  it  then  as 
much  as  you  can.     However,   I  reckon  the  foreign 


4o6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

missions  will  look  arter  the  part  that  goes  to  them, 
and  if  Maria's  got  the  sense  I  credit  her  with  she'll 
look  arter  hers." 

"After  mine?"  exclaimed  Maria,  lifting  her  head 
to  return  his  gaze.  "Why,  I  thought  you  gave  me 
my  share  when  I  married." 

"So  I  did — so  I  did,  and  you  let  it  slip  like  water 
through  your  ringers,  but  you've  grown  up,  I  reckon, 
sence  you  were  such  a  fool  as  to  have  your  head 
turned  by  Wyndham,  and  if  you  don't  hold  on  to 
this  tighter  than  you  did  to  the  last  you  deserve  to 
lose  it,  that's  all.  You're  a  good  woman — I  ain't 
lived  a  month  in  the  house  with  you  and  not  found 
that  out — but  if  you  hadn't  had  something  more  than 
goodness  inside  your  head  you  wouldn't  have  got  so 
much  as  a  cent  out  of  me  again.  Saidie's  a  good 
woman  and  a  blamed  fool,  too,  but  you're  different; 
you've  got  a  backbone  in  your  body,  and  I'll  be 
hanged  if  that  ain't  why  I'm  leaving  the  Hall  to  you.  " 

"The  Hall?"  echoed  Maria,  rising  impulsively 
from  her  chair  and  facing  him  upon  the  hearthrug. 

"The  Hall  and  Saidie  and  the  whole  lot,"  returned 
Fletcher,  chuckling,  "and  I  may  as  well  tell  you  now, 
that,  for  all  your  spendthrift  notions  about  wages, 
you're  the  only  woman  I  ever  saw  who  was  fit  to 
own  a  foot  of  land.  But  I  like  the  quiet  way  you 
manage  things,  somehow,  and,  bless  my  soul,  if  you 
were  a  man  I'd  leave  you  the  whole  business  and  let 
the  missions  hang." 

"There's  time  yet,"  observed  Carraway  beneath  his 
breath. 

"No,  no;  it's  settled  now,"  returned  Fletcher, 
"and  she'll  have  more  than  she  can  handle  as  it  is. 


CARRAWAY  SPEAKS  THE  TRUTH      407 

Most  likely  she'll  marry  again,  being  a  woman,  and 
a  man  will  be  master  here,  arter  all.  If  you  do," 
he  added,  turning  angrily  upon  his  granddaughter, 
"for  heaven's  sakes,  don't  let  it  be  another  precious 
scamp  like  your  first ! ' ' 

With  a  shiver  Maria  caught  her  breath  and  bent 
toward  him  with  an  appealing  gesture  of  her  arms. 

"But  you  must  not  do  it,  grandfather;  it  isn't 
right.     The  place  was  never  meant  to  belong  to  me." 

"Well,  it  belongs  to  me,  I  reckon,  and  confound 
your  silly  puritanical  fancies,  I'll  leave  it  where  I 
please,"  retorted  Fletcher,  and  strode  from  the 
room. 

Throwing  herself  back  into  her  chair,  Maria  lay 
for  a  time  looking  thoughtfully  at  the  hickory  log, 
which  crumbled  and  threw  out  a  shower  of  red 
sparks.  Her  face  was  grave,  but  there  was  no  hint 
of  indecision  upon  it,  and  it  struck  Carraway  very 
forcibly  at  the  instant  that  she  knew  her  own  mind 
quite  clearly  and  distinctly  upon  this  as  upon  most 
other  matters. 

"It  may  surprise  you,"  she  said  presently,  speaking 
with  sudden  passion,  "but  by  right  the  Hall  ought  not 
to  be  mine,  and  I  do  not  want  it.  I  have  never 
loved  it  because  it  has  never  for  a  moment  seemed 
home  to  me,  and  our  people  have  always  appeared 
strangers  upon  the  land.  How  we  came  here  I  do 
not  know,  but  it  has  not  suited  us,  and  we  have  only 
disfigured  a  beauty  into  which  we  did  not  fit.  Its 
very  age  is  a  reproach  to  us,  for  it  shows  off  our 
newness — our  lack  of  any  past  that  we  may  call  our 
own.  Will  might  feel  HimseTf  master  riereV"  but  I 
cannot." 


4o8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Carraway  took  off  his  glasses  and  rubbed  patiently 
at  the  ridge  they  had  drawn  across  his  nose. 

"And  yet,  why  not?"  he  asked.  "The  place  has 
been  in  your  grandfather's  possession  now  for  more 
than  twenty  years." 

"For  more  than  twenty  years,"  repeated  Maria 
scornfully,  "and  before  that  the  Blakes  lived  here 
— how  long?" 

He  met  her  question  squarely.  "For  more  than 
two  hundred." 

Without  shifting  her  steady  gaze  which  she  turned 
upon  his  face,  she  leaned  forward,  clasping  her  hands 
loosely  upon  the  knees. 

"There  are  things  that  I  want  to  know,  Mr.  Carra- 
way," she  said,  "many  things,  and  I  believe  that  you 
can  tell  me.  Most  of  all,  I  want  to  know  why  we 
ever  came  to  Blake  Hall  ?  Why  the  Blakes  ever 
left  it?  And,  above  all,  why  they  have  hated  us  so 
heartily  and  so  long?" 

She  paused  and  sat  motionless,  while  she  hung 
with  suspended  breath  upon  his  reply. 

For  a  moment  the  lawyer  hesitated,  nervously 
twirling  his  glasses  between  his  thumb  and  forefinger ; 
then  he  slowly  shook  his  head  and  looked  from  her 
to  the  fire. 

"Twenty  years  are  not  as  a  day,  despite  your  scorn, 
my  dear  young  lady,  and  many  facts  become  overlaid 
with  fiction  in  a  shorter  time." 

"But  you  know  something — and  you  believe  still 
more." 

"God  forbid  that  I  should  convert  you  to  any 
belief  of  mine." 

She  put  out  a  protesting  hand,  her  eyes  still  gravely 


CARRAWAY  SPEAKS  THE  TRUTH      409 

insistent.  "Tell  me  all — I  demand  it.  It  is  my 
right;  you  must  see  that." 

"A  right  to  demolish  sand  houses — to  scatter  old 
dust." 

"A  right  to  hear  the  truth.  Surely  you  will  not 
withhold  it  from  me  ? ' ' 

"I  don't  know  the  truth,  so  I  can't  enlighten  you. 
I  know  only  the  stories  of  both  sides,  and  they 
resemble  each  other  merely  in  that  they  both  center 
about  the  same  point  of  interest." 

"Then  you  will  tell  them  to  me — you  must,"  she 
said  earnestly.  "Tell  me  first,  word  for  word,  all 
that  the  Blakes  believe  of  us." 

With  a  laugh,  he  put  on  his  glasses  that  he  might 
bring  her  troubled  face  the  more  clearly  before  him. 

"A  high  spirit  of  impartiality,  I  admit,"  he 
observed. 

"That  I  should  want  to  hear  the  other  side?  " 

"That,  being  a  woman,  you  should  take  for  granted 
the  existence  of  the  other  side." 

She  shook  her  head  impatiently.  "You  can't 
evade  me  by  airing  camphor-scented  views  of  my 
sex,"  she  returned.  "What  I  wish  to  know — and  I 
still  stick  to  my  point,  you  see — is  the  very  thing  you 
are  so  carefully  holding  back." 

"I  am  holding  back  nothing,  on  my  honour,"  he 
assured  her.  "If  you  want  the  impression  which 
still  exists  in  the  county — only  an  impression — I 
must  make  plain  to  you  at  the  start  (for  the  events 
happened  when  the  State  was  in  the  throes  of  recon- 
struction, when  each  man  was  busy  rebuilding  his 
own  fortunes,  and  when  tragedies  occurred  without 
notice  and  were  hushed  up  without  remark) — if  you 


410  THE  DELIVERANCE 

want  merely  an  impression,  I  repeat,  then  you  may 
have  it,   my  dear  lady,  straight  from  the  shoulder." 
"Well?"   her  voice  rose  inquiringly,    for  he  had 
paused. 

t  "  There  is  really  nothing  definite  known  of  the 
affair,"  he  resumed  after  a  moment,  "  even  the  papers 
which  would  have  thrown  light  into  the  darkness 
were  destroyed — burned,  it  is  said,  in  an  old  office 
which  the  Federal  soldiers  fired.  It  is  all  mystery 
— grim  mystery  and  surmise;  and  when  there  is  no 
chance  of  either  proving  or  disproving  a  case  I 
dare  say  one  man's  word  answers  quite  as  well  as 
another's.  At  all  events,  we  have  your  grandfather's 
testimony  as  chief  actor  and  eye-witness  against 
the  inherited  convictions  of  our  somewhat  Homeric 
young  neighbour.  For  eighteen  years  before  the 
war  Mr.  Fletcher  was  sole  agent — a  queer  selection, 
certainly — for  old  Mr.  Blake,  who  was  known  to  have 
grown  very  careless  in  the  confidence  he  placed. 
When  the  crash  came,  about  three  years  after  the 
war,  the  old  gentleman's  mind  was  much  enfeebled, 
and  it  was  generally  rumoured  that  his  children  were 
kept  in  ignorance  that  the  place  was  passing  from 
them  until  it  was  auctioned  off  over  their  heads 
and  Mr.  Fletcher  became  the  purchaser.  How  this 
was,  of  course,  I  do  not  pretend  to  say,  but  when 
the  Hall  finally  went  for  the  absurd  sum  of  seven 
thousand  dollars  life  was  at  best  a  hard  struggle  in 
the  State,  and  I  imagine  there  was  less  surprise  at 
the  sacrifice  of  the  place  than  at  the  fact  that  your 
grandfather  should  have  been  able  to  put  down  the 
ready  money.  The  making  of  a  fortune  is  always, 
I  suppose,  more  inexplicable  than  the  losing  of  one. 


CARRAWAY  SPEAKS  THE  TRUTH      411 

The  Blakes  had  always  been  accounted  people  of 
great  wealth  and  wastefulness,  but  within  five  years 
from  the  close  of  the  war  they  had  sunk  to  the 
position  in  which  you  find  them  now — a  change,  I 
dare  say,  from  which  it  is  natural  much  lingering 
bitterness  should  result.  The  old  man  died  almost 
penniless,  and  his  children  were  left  to  struggle 
on  from  day  to  day  as  best  they  could.  It  is  a  sad 
tale,  and  I  do  not  wonder  that  it  moves  you,"  he 
finished  slowly,  and  looked  down  to  wipe  his 
glasses. 

"And  grandfather?"  asked  the  girl  quietly.  Her 
gaze  had  not  wavered  from  his  face,  but  her  eyes 
shone  luminous  through  the  tears  which  filled 
them. 

"He  became  rich  as  suddenly  as  the  Blakes  became 
poor.  Where  his  money  came  from  no  one  asked, 
and  no  one  cared  except  the  Blakes,  who  were 
helpless.  They  made  some  small  attempts  at  law 
suits,  I  believe,  but  Christopher  was  only  a  child 
then,  and  there  was  nobody  with  the  spirit  to  push 
the  case.  Then  money  was  needed,  and  they  were 
quite  impoverished." 

Maria  threw  out  her  hands  with  a  gesture  of  revolt. 

"Oh,  it  is  a  terrible  story,"  she  said,  "a  terrible 
story." 

"It  is  an  old  one,  and  belongs  to  terrible  times. 
You  have  drawn  it  from  me  for  your  own  purpose, 
and  be  that  as  it  may,  I  have  always  believed  in 
giving  a  straight  answer  to  a  straight  question. 
Now  such  things  would  be  impossible,"  he  added 
cheerfully;  "then,  I  fear,  they  were  but  too  probable." 

"In  your  heart  you  believe  that  it  is  true ? " 


4i2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

He  did  not  flinch  from  his  response.  "In  my 
heart  I  believe  that  there  is  more  in  it  than 
a  lie." 

Rising  from  her  chair,  she  turned  from  him  and 
walked  rapidly  up  and  down  the  room,  through 
the  firelight  which  shimmered  over  the  polished 
floor.  Once  she  stopped  by  the  window,  and,  draw- 
ing the  curtains  aside,  looked  out  upon  the  April 
sunshine  and  upon  the  young  green  leaves  which 
tinted  the  distant  woods.  Then  coming  back  to  the 
hearthrug,  she  stood  gazing  down  upon  him  with  a 
serene  and  resolute  expression. 

"I  am  glad  now  that  the  Hall  will  be  mine,"  she 
said,  "glad  even  that  it  wasn't  left  to  Will,  for  who 
knows  how  he  would  have  looked  at  it.  There  is 
but  one  thing  to  be  done :  you  must  see  that  yourself. 
At  grandfather's  death  the  place  must  go  back  to  its 
rightful  owners.'* 

' '  To  its  rightful  owners  ?  "  he  repeated  in  amaze- 
ment, and  rose  to  his  feet. 

"To  the  Blakes.  Oh,  don't  you  see  it — can't  you 
see  that  there  is  nothing  else  to  do  in  common 
honesty?" 

He  shook  his  head,  smiling. 

"  It  is  very  beautiful,  my  child,  but  is  it  reasonable, 
after  all?"  he   asked. 

"Reasonable ? "  The  fine  scorn  he  had  heard  before 
in  her  voice  thrilled  her  from  head  to  foot.  "Shall 
I  stop  to  ask  what  is  reasonable  before  doing  what 
is   right?" 

Without  looking  at  her,  he  drew  a  handkerchief 
from  his  pocket  and  shook  it  slowly  out  from  its 
folds. 


CARRAWAY  SPEAKS  THE  TRUTH      413 

"Well,  I'm  not  sure  that  you  shouldn't,"  he 
rejoined. 

"Then  I  shan't  be  reasonable.  I'll  be  wise," 
she  said;  "for  surely,  if  there  is  any  wisdom  upon 
earth,  it  is  simply  to  do  right.  It  may  be  many  years 
off,  and  I  may  be  an  old  woman,  but  when  the  Hall 
comes  to  me  at  grandfather's  death  I  shall  return  it 
to  the  Blakes." 

In  the  silence  which  followed  he  found  himself 
looking  into  her  ardent  face  with  a  wonder  not 
unmixed  with  awe.  To  his  rather  cynical  view  of  the 
Fletchers  such  an  outburst  came  as  little  less  than 
a  veritable  thunderclap,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life  he  felt  a  need  to  modify  his  conservative  theories 
as  to  the  necessity  of  blue  blood  to  nourish  high 
ideals.  Maria,  indeed,  seemed  to  him  as  she  stood 
there,  drawn  fine  and  strong  against  the  curtains  of 
faded  green,  to  hold  about  her  something  better  than 
that  aroma  of  the  past  which  he  had  felt  to  be  the 
intimate  charm  of  all  exquisite  things,  and  it  was 
at  the  moment  the  very  light  and  promise  of  the 
future  which  he  saw  in  the  broad  intelligence  of  her 
brow.  Was  it  possible,  after  all,  he  questioned, 
that  out  of  the  tragic  wreck  of  old  claims  and  old 
customs  which  he  had  witnessed  there  should  spring 
creatures  of  even  finer  fiber  than  those  who  had 
gone  before  ? 

"So  this  is  your  last  word  ? "  he  inquired  helplessly. 

"My  last  word  to  you — yes.  In  a  moment  I  am 
going  out  to  see  the  Blakes — to  make  them  under- 
stand." 

He  put  out  his  hand  as  if  to  detain  her  by  a  feeble 
pull  at  her  skirt. 


4i4  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"At  least,  you  will  sleep  a  night  upon  your  reso- 
lution ? ' ' 

"How  can  my  sleeping  alter  things?  My  waking 
may." 

"And  you  will  sweep  the  claims  of  twenty  years 
aside  in  an  hour?" 

"They  are  swept  aside  by  the  claims  of  two 
hundred." 

With  a  courteous  gesture  he  bent  over  her  hand 
and  raised  it  gravely  to  his  lips. 

"My  dear  young  friend,  you  are  very  lovely  and 
very  unreasonable,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Between  Maria  and  Christopher 

A  little  later,  Maria,  with  a  white  scarf  thrown 
over  her  head,  came  out  of  the  Hall  and  passed 
swiftly  along  the  road  under  the  young  green  leaves 
which  were  putting  out  on  the  trees.  When  she 
reached  the  whitewashed  gate  before  the  Blake 
cottage  she  saw  Christopher  ploughing  in  the  field 
on  the  left  of  the  house,  and  turning  into  the  little 
path  which  trailed  through  the  tall  weeds  beside  the 
"worm"  fence,  she  crossed  the  yard  and  stood  hesi- 
tating at  the  beginning  of  the  open  furrow  he  had 
left  behind  him.  His  gaze  was  bent  upon  the  horses, 
and  for  a  moment  she  watched  him  in  attentive 
silence,  her  eyes  dwelling  on  his  massive  figure,  which 
cast  a  gigantic  blue-black  shadow  across  the  April 
sunbeams.  She  saw  him  at  the  m'sjtanjj  with  a  dis- 
tinctness, a  clearness  of  perception,  that  she  had 
never  been  conscious  of  until  to-day,  as  if  each  trivial 
detail  in  his  appearance  was  magnified  by  the  pale 
yellow  sunshine  through  which  she  looked  upon  it. 
The  abundant  wheaten-brown  hair,  waving  from  the 
moist  circle  drawn  by  the  hat  he  had  thrown  aside, 
the  strong  masculine  profile  burned  to  a  faint  terra- 
cotta shade  from  wind  and  sun,  and  the  powerful 
hands  knotted  and  roughened  by  heavy  labour,  all 

415 


4i6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stood  out  vividly  in  the  mental  image  which  remained 
with  her  when  she  lowered  her  eyes. 

Aroused  by  a  sound  from  the  house,  he  looked 
up  and  saw  her  standing  on  the  edge  of  the  ploughed 
field,  her  lace  scarf  blown  softly  in  the  April  wind. 
After  a  single  minute  of  breathless  surprise  he 
tossed  the  long  ropes  on  the  ground,  and,  leaving 
the  plough,  came  rapidly  across  the  loose  clods 
of  upturned    earth. 

"Did  you  come  because  I  was  thinking  of  you?" 
he  asked  simply,  with  the  natural  directness  which 
had  appealed  so  strongly  to  her  fearless  nature. 

"Were  you  thinking  of  me?"  her  faint  smile 
shone  on  him  for  an  instant ;  ' '  and  were  your  thoughts 
as  grave,  I  wonder,  as  my  reason  for  coming?" 

"So  you  have  a  reason,  then?" 

' '  Did  you  think  I  should  dare  to  come  without 
one  ? ' ' 

The  light  wind  caught  her  scarf,  blowing  the  long 
ends  about  her  head.  From  the  frame  of  soft  white 
lace  her  eyes  looked  dark  and  solemn  and  very 
distant. 

"I  had  hoped  that  you  had  no  other  reason  than — 
kindness."  He  had  lost  entirely  the  rustic  restraint 
he  had  once  felt  in  her  presence,  and,  as  he  stood 
there  in  his  clothes  of  dull  blue  jean,  it  was  easy  to 
believe  in  the  gallant  generations  at  his  back.  Was 
the  fret  of  their  gay  adventures  in  his  blood?  she 
wondered. 

"You  will  see  the  kindness  in  my  reason,  I  hope," 
she  answered  quietly,  while  the  glow  of  her  sudden 
resolution  illumined  her  face,  "and  at  least  you  will 
admit  the  justice — though  belated." 


MARIA  AND  CHRISTOPHER  417 

He  drew  a  step  nearer.  "And  it  concerns  you — ■ 
and  me?"  he  asked. 

"It  concerns  you — oh,  yes,  yes,  and  me  also, 
though  very  slightly.  I  have  just  learned — just  a 
moment  ago — what  you  must  have  thought  I  knew 
all  along." 

As  he  fell  back  she  saw  that  he  paled  slowly 
beneath  his  sunburn. 

"You  have  just  learned — what?"  he  demanded. 

"The  truth,"  she  replied;  "as  much  of  the  truth 
as  one  may  learn  in  an  hour:  how  it  came  that  you 
are  here  and  I  am  there — at  the  Hall." 

"At  the  Hall?"  he  repeated,  and  there  was  relief 
in  the  quick  breath  he  drew ;  "  I  had  forgotten  the 
Hall." 

"Forgotten  it?  Why,  I  thought  it  was  your 
dream,  your  longing,  your  one  great  memory." 

Smiling  into  her  eyes,  he  shook  his  head  twice 
before  he  answered. 

"It  was  all  that — once." 

"Then  it  is  not  so  now?"  she  asked,  disappointed, 
"and  what  I  have  to  tell  you  will  lose  half  its  value." 

"So  it  is  about  the  Hall?" 

With  one  hand  she  held  back  the  fluttering  lace 
upon  her  bosom,  while  lifting  the  other  she 
pointed  across  the  ploughed  fields  to  the  old  gray 
chimneys  huddled  amid  the  budding  oaks. 

"Does  it  not  make  you  homesick  to  stand  here  and 
look  at  it  ? "  she  asked.  "Think  !  For  more  than  two 
hundred  years  your  people  lived  there,  and  there  is 
not  a  room  within  the  house,  nor  a  spot  upon  the 
land,  that  does  not  hold  some  sacred  association  for 
those  of  your  name." 


4i8  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Startled  by  the  passion  in  her  words,  he  turned 
from  the  Hall  at  which  he  had  been  gazing. 

"What  do  you  mean ? "  he  demanded  imperatively. 
' '  What  do  you  wish  to  say  ? ' ' 

"Look  at  the  Hall  and  not  at  me  while  I  tell  you. 
It  is  this — now  listen  and  do  not  turn  from  it  for 
an  instant.  Blake  Hall — I  have  just  found  it  out — 
will  come  to  me  at  grandfather's  death,  and  when 
it  does — when  it  does  I  shall  return  it  to  your  family — 
the  whole  of  it,  every  lovely  acre.  Oh,  don't  look  at 
me — look  at  the  Hall ! " 

But  he  looked  neither  at  her  nor  at  the  Hall,  for 
his  gaze  dropped  to  the  ground  and  hung  blankly 
upon  a  clod  of  dry  brown  earth.  She  saw  him  grow 
pale  to  the  lips  and  dark  blue  circles  come  out  slowly 
about  his  eyes. 

"  It  is  but  common  justice;  you  see  that," she  urged. 

At  this  he  raised  his  head  and  returned  her  look. 

"And  what  of  Will?"  he  asked. 

Her  surprise  showed  in  her  face,  and  at  sight  of  it 
he  repeated  his  question  with  a  stubborn  insistence: 
"  But  what  of  Will  ?     What  has  been  done  for  Will  ? " 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;  I  don't  know.  The  break  is 
past  mending.  But  it  is  not  of  him  that  I  must  speak 
to  you  now — it  is  of  yourself.  Don't  you  see  that 
the  terrible  injustice  has  bowed  me  to  the  earth? 
What  am  I  better  than  a  dependent — a  charity  ward 
who  has  lived  for  years  upon  your  money  ?  My  very 
education,  my  little  culture,  the  refinements  you  see 
in  me — these  even  I  have  no  real  right  to,  for  they 
belong  to  your  family.  While  you  have  worked  as 
a  labourer  in  the  field  I  have  been  busy  squandering 
the  wealth  which  was  not  mine." 


MARIA  AND  CHRISTOPHER  419 

His  face  grew  gentle  as  he  looked  at  her. 

"If  the  Blake  money  has  made  you  what  you  are, 
then  it  has  not  been  utterly  wasted,"  he  replied. 

"Oh,  you  don't  understand — you  don't  under- 
stand," she  repeated,  pressing  her  hands  upon  her 
bosom,  as  if  to  quiet  her  fluttering  breath.  "You 
have  suffered  from  it  all  along,  but  it  is  I  who  suffer 
most  to-day — who  suffer  most  because  I  am  upon  the 
side  of  the  injustice.  I  can  have  no  peace  until  you 
tell  me  that  I  may  still  do  my  poor  best  to  make 
amends — that  when  your  home  is  mine  you  will 
let  me  give  it  back  to  you." 

"It  is  too  late,"  he  answered  with  bitter  humour. 
"You  can't  put  a  field-hand  in  a  fine  house  and  make 
him  a  gentleman.  It  is  too  late  to  undo  what  was 
done  twenty  years  ago.  The  place  can  never  be 
mine  again — I  have  even  ceased  to  want  it.  Give  it 
to  Will." 

"I  couldn't  if  I  wanted  to,"  she  replied;  "but  I 
don't  want  to — I  don't  want  to.  It  must  go  back  to 
you  and  to  your  sisters.  Do  you  think  ~i  could  ever  be 
owner  of  it  now  ?  Even  if  it  comes  to  me  when  I  am 
an  old  woman,  I  shall  always  feel  myself  a  stranger 
in  the  house,  though  I  should  live  there  day  and  night 
for  fifty  years.  No,  no;  it  is  impossible  that  I  should 
ever  keep  it  for  an  instant.  It  must  go  back  to  you 
and  to  the  Blakes  who  come  after  you." 

"There  will  be  no  Blakes  after  me,"  he  answered. 
"I  am  the  last." 

"Then  promise  me  that  if  the  Hall  is  ever  mine 
you  will  take  it." 

"From  you?  No:  not  unless  I  took  it  to  hand  on 
to  your  brother.     It  is  an  old  score  that  you  have 


42o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

brought  up — one  that  lasted  twenty  years  before  it 
was  settled.     It  is  too  late  to  stir  up  matters  now." 

"It  is  not  too  late,"  she  said  earnestly.  "It  is 
never  too  late  to  try  to  undo  a  wrong." 

"The  wrong  was  not  yours:  it  must  never  touch 
you,"  he  replied.  "If  my  life  was  as  clean  as  yours, 
it  would,  perhaps,  not  be  too  late  for  me  either. 
Ten  years  ago  I  might  have  felt  differently  about 
it,  but  not  now." 

He  broke  off  hurriedly,  and  Maria,  with  a  hopeless 
gesture,  turned  back  into  the  path. 

Then  I  shall  appeal  to  your  sisters  when  the  time 
comes,"  she  responded  quietly. 

Catching  the  loose  ends  of  her  scarf,  he  drew  her 
slowly  around  until  she  met  his  eyes.  "And  I  have 
said  nothing  to  you — to  you,"  he  began,  in  a  con- 
strained voice,  which  he  tried  in  vain  to  steady, 
"because  it  is  so  hard  to  say  anything  and  not  say 
too  much.  This,  at  least,  you  must  know — that  I 
am  your  servant  now  and  shall  be  all  my  life." 

She  smiled  sadly,  looking  down  at  the  scarf  which 
was  crushed  in  his  hands. 

"And  yet  you  will  not  grant  the  wish  of  my  heart," 
she  said. 

"How  could  I?  Put  me  back  in  the  Hall,  and  I 
should  be  as  ignorant  and  as  coarse  as  I  am  out 
here.  A  labourer  is  all  I  am  and  all  I  am  fit  to  be. 
I  once  had  a  rather  bookish  ambition,  you  know,  but 
that  is  over — I  wanted  to  read  Greek  and  translate 
'  The  Iliad '  and  all  that — and  yet  to-day  I  doubt  if 
I  could  write  a  decent  letter  to  save  my  soul.  It's 
partly  my  fault,  of  course,  but  you  can't  know — 
you   could   never   know — the   abject   bitterness    and 


MARIA  AND  CHRISTOPHER  421 

despair  of  those  years  when  I  tried  to  sink  myself  to 
the  level  of  the  brutes — tried  to  forget  that  I  was 
any  better  than  the  oxen  I  drove.  No,  there's  no 
pulling  me  up  again;  such  things  aren't  lived  over, 
and  I'm  down  for  good." 

Her  tears,  which  she  had  held  back,  broke  forth 
at  his  words,  and  he  saw  them  fall  upon  her  bosom, 
where  her  hands  were  still  tightly  clasped. 

"And  it  is  all  our  fault,"  she  said  brokenly. 

"Not  yours,  surely." 

"It  is  not  too  late,"  she  went  on  passionately, 
laying  her  hand  upon  his  arm  and  looking  up  at  him 
with  a  misty  brightness.  "Oh,  if  you  would  let  me 
make  amends — let  me  help  you  ! " 

"Is  there  any  help?"  he  asked,  with  his  eyes  on 
the  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"If  you  will  let  me,  I  will  find  it.  We  will  take 
up  your  study  where  you  broke  it  off — we  will  come 
up  step  by  step,  even  to  Homer,  if  you  like.  I  am 
fond  of  books,  you  know,  and  I  have  had  my  fancy 
for  Greek,  too.  Oh,  it  will  be  so  easy — so  easy; 
and  when  the  time  comes  for  you  to  go  back  to  the 
Hall,  I  shall  have  made  you  the  most  learned  Blake 
of  the  whole  line." 

He  bent  quickly  and  kissed  the  hand  which  trembled 
on  his  sleeve. 

"Make  of  me  what  you  please,"  he  said;  "I  am  at 
your  service." 

For  the  second  time  he  saw  the  wonderful  light — 
the  fervour — illumine  her  face,  and  then  fade  slowly, 
leaving  a  still,  soft  radiance  of  expression. 

"Then  I  may  teach  you  all  that  you  haven't 
learned,"  she  said  with  a  happy  little  laugh.     "How 


422  THE  DELIVERANCE 

fortunate  that  I  should  have  been  born  a  bookworm. 
Shall  we  begin  with  Greek  ? " 

He  smiled.  "No;  let's  start  with  English — and 
start  low." 

"Then  we'll  do  both;  but  where  shall  it  be?..  Not 
at  the  Hall." 

"Hardly.  There's  a  bench,  though,  down  by  the 
poplar  spring  that  looks  as  if  it  were  meant  to  be  in 
school.  Do  you  know  the  place  ?  It's  in  my  pasture 
by  the  meadow  brook?" 

"I  can  find  it,  and  I'll  bring  the  books  to-morrow 
at  this  hour.     Will  you  come?" 

"To-morrow — and  every  day?" 

"Every  day." 

For  an  instant  he  looked  at  her  in  perplexity.  "I 
may  as  well  tell  you,"  he  said  at  last,  "that  I'm  one 
of  the  very  biggest  rascals  on  God's  earth.  I'm  not 
worth  all  this,  you  know;  that's  honest." 

"And  so  are  you,"  she  called  back  gaily,  as  she 
turned  from  him  and  went  rapidly  along  the  little 
path. 


CHAPTER   IX 

Christopher  Faces  Himself 

When  she  had  gone  through  the  gate  and  across 
the  little  patch  of  trodden  grass  into  the  sunken 
road,  Christopher  took  up  the  ropes  and  with  a  quick 
jerk  of  the  buried  ploughshare  began  his  plodding 
walk  over  the  turned-up  sod.  The  furrow  was 
short,  but  when  he  reached  the  end  of  it  he  paused  from 
sheer  exhaustion  and  stood  wiping  the  heavy  moisture 
from  his  brow.  The  scene  through  which  he  had 
just  passed  had  left  him  quivering  in  every  nerve,  as 
if  he  had  been  engaged  in  some  terrible  struggle 
against  physical  odds.  All  at  once  he  became  aware 
that  the  afternoon  was  too  oppressive  for  field  work, 
and,  unhitching  the  horses  from  the  plough,  he  led 
them  slowly  back  to  the  stable  beyond  the  house.  > 
As  he  went,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  grown 
middle-aged  within  the  hour;  his  youth  had  departed  | 
as  mysteriously  as  his  strength. 

A  little  later,  Tucker,  who  was  sitting  on  the  end 
of  a  big  log  at  the  woodpile,  looked  up  in  surprise 
from  the  ant-hill  he  was  watching. 

"Quit  work  early,  eh,  Christopher?" 

"Yes ;  I've  given  out,"  replied  Christopher,  stopping 
beside  him  and  picking  up  the  axe  which  lay  in  a 
scattered  pile  of  chips.     "It's  the  spring  weather,  I 

423 


424  THE  DELIVERANCE 

reckon,  but  I'm  not  fit  for  a  tougher  job  than  chop- 
ping wood." 

"Well,  I'd  leave  that  off  just  now,  if  I  were  you." 

Raising  the  axe,  Christopher  swung  it  lightly  over 
his  shoulder;  then,  lowering  it  with  a  nerveless  move- 
ment, he  tossed  it  impatiently  on  the  ground. 

"A  queer  thing  happened  just  now,  Uncle  Tucker," 
he  said,  "a  thing  you'll  hardly  believe  even  when 
I  tell  you.     I  had  a  visit  from  Mrs.  Wyndham,  and 

she  came  to  say "  he  stammered  and  broke  off 

abruptly. 

"Mrs.  Wyndham?"  repeated  Tucker.  "She's  Bill 
Fletcher's  granddaughter,  isn't  she?" 

"Maria  Fletcher — you  may  have  seen  her  when 
she  lived  here,  five  or  six  years  ago." 

Tucker  shook  his  head. 

"  Bless  your  heart,  my  boy,  I  haven't  seen  a 
woman  except  Lucy  and  the  girls  for  twenty-five 
years.      But  why  did  she  come,  I  wonder?" 

"  That's  the  strange  part,  and  you  won't  under- 
stand it  until  you  see  her.  She  came  because  she 
had  just  heard — some  one  had  told  her — about 
Fletcher's  old  rascality." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  exclaimed  Tucker  beneath 
his  breath.  He  gave  a  long  whistle  and  sat  smiling 
at  the  little  red  ant-hill.  "And  did  she  actually 
proffer  an  apology?"  he  inquired. 

"An  amendment,  rather.  The  Hall  will  come  to 
her  at  Fletcher's  death,  and  she  walked  over  to  say 
quite  coolly  that  she  wanted  to  give  it  back  to  us. 
Think  of  that !  To  part  with  such  a  home  for  the 
sake  of  mere  right  and  justice." 

"It  is  something  to  think  about,"  assented  Tucker, 


CHRISTOPHER  FACES  HIMSELF        425 

"and  to  think  hard  about,  too — and  yet  I  cut  my 
teeth  on  the  theory  that  women  have  no  sense  of 
honour.  Now,  that  is  pure,  foolish,  strait-laced 
honour,  and  nothing  else." 

"Nothing  else,"  repeated  Christopher  softly;  "and 
if  you'll  believe  it,  she  cried — she  really  cried  when  I 
told  her  I  couldn't  take  it.  Oh,  she's  wonderful!" 
he  burst  out  suddenly,  all  his  awkward  reserve 
dropping  from  him.  "You  can't  be  with  her  ten 
minutes  without  feeling  how  good  she  is — good  all 
through,  with  a  big  goodness  that  isn't  in  the  least 
like  the  little  prudishness  of  other  women " 

He  checked  himself  hastily,  but  not  before  Tucker 
had  glanced  up  with  his  pleasant  smile. 

"Well,  my  boy,  I  don't  misunderstand  you.  I 
never  knew  a  man  yet  to  begin  a  love  affair  with  a 
panegyric  on  virtue.  She's  an  estimable  woman,  I 
dare  say,  and  I  presume  she's  plain." 

"Plain!"  gasped  Christopher.  "Why,  she's  beau- 
tiful— at  least,  you  think  so  when  you  see  her  smile." 

"So  she  smiled  through  her  tears,  eh?" 

Christopher  started  angrily.  "Can  you  sit  there 
on  that  log  and  laugh  at  such  a  thing  ? "  he  demanded. 

"Come,  come,"  protested  Tucker,  "an  honest 
laugh  never  turned  a  sweet  deed  sour  since  the  world 
began— and  that  was  more  than  sweet;  it  was  fine. 
I'd  like  to  know  that  woman,  Christopher." 

"You  could  never  know  her — no  man  could. 
She's  all  clear  and  bright  on  the  surface,  but  all 
mystery  beneath." 

"Ah,  that's  it ;  you  see,  there  was  never  a  fascinating 
woman  yet  who  was  easy  to  understand.  Wasn't 
it  that  shrewd  old  gallant,  Bolivar  Blake,  who  said 


426  THE  DELIVERANCE 

that  in  love  an  ounce  of  mystery  was  worth  a  pound 
of  morality? " 

"It's  like  him:  he  said  a  lot  of  nonsense,"  com- 
mented Christopher.  "But  to  think,"  he  added 
after  a  moment,  "that  she  should  be  Bill  Fletcher's 
granddaughter ! " 

"Well,  I  knew  her  mother,"  returned  Tucker,  "and 
she  was  as  honest,  God-fearing  a  body  as  ever  trod 
this  earth.  She  stood  out  against  Fletcher  to  the  last, 
you  know,  and  worked  hard  for  her  living  while  that 
scamp,  her  husband,  drank  them  both  to  death. 
There  are  some  people  who  are  born  with  a  down- 
right genius  for  honesty,  and  this  girl  may  be  one 
of  them." 

"I  don't  know — I  don't  know,"  said  Christopher, 
in  a  voice  which  had  grown  spiritless.  Then  after 
an  instant  in  which  he  stared  blankly  down  at 
Tucker's  ant-hill,  he  turned  hurriedly  away  and 
followed  the  little  straggling  path  to  the  barn  door. 

From  the  restlessness  that  pricked  in  his  limbs 
there  was  no  escape,  and  after  entering  the  barn  he 
came  out  again  and  went  down  into  the  pasture  to 
the  long  bench  beside  the  poplar  spring.  Here, 
while  the  faint  shadows  of  the  young  leaves  played 
over  him,  he  sat  with  his  head  bent  forward  and  his 
hands  dropped  listlessly  between  his  knees. 

Around  him  there  was  the  tender  green  of  the 
spring  meadows,  divided  by  a  little  brook  where  the 
willows  shone  pure  silver  under  the  April  wind. 
Near  at  hand  a  catbird  sang  in  short,  tripping  notes, 
and  in  the  clump  of  briars  by  the  spring  a  rabbit 
sat  alert  for  the  first  sound.  So  motionless  was 
Christopher  that  he  seemed,  sitting  there  by  the  pale 


CHRISTOPHER  FACES  HIMSELF        427 

gray  body  of  a  poplar,  almost  to  become  a  part  of 
the  tree  against  which  he  leaned — to  lose,  for  the 
time  at  least,  his  share  in  the  moving  animal  life 
around  him. 

At  first  there  was  mere  blankness  in  his  mind — an 
absence  of  light  and  colour  in  which  his  thoughts 
were  suddenly  blotted  out;  then,  as  the  wind  raised 
the  hair  upon  his  brow,  he  lifted  his  eyes  from  the 
ground,  and  with  the  movement  it  seemed  as  if  his 
life  ran  backward  to  its  beginning  and  he  saw  himself 
not  as  he  was  to-day,  but  as  he  might  have  been  in 
a  period  of  time  which  had  no  being. 

Before  him  were  his  knotted  and  blistered  hands, 
his  long  limbs  outstretched  in  their  coarse  clothes, 
but  in  the  vision  beyond  the  little  spring  he  walked 
proudly  with  his  rightful  heritage  upon  him — a 
Blake  by  force  of  blood  and  circumstance.  The 
world  lay  before  him — bright,  alluring,  a  thing  of 
enchanting  promise,  and  it  was  as  if  he  looked  for  the 
first  time  upon  the  possibilities  contained  in  this 
life  upon  the  earth.  For  an  instant  the  glow  lasted 
— the  beauty  dwelt  upon  the  vision,  and  he  beheld, 
clear  and  radiant,  the  happiness  which  might  have 
been  his  own;  then  it  grew  dark  again,  and  he  faced 
the  brutal  truth  in  all  its  nakedness :  he  knew  himself 
for  what  he  was — a  man  debased  by  ignorance  and 
passion  to  the  level  of  the  beasts.  He  had  sold  his 
birthright  for  a  requital,  which  had  sickened  him 
even  in  the  moment  of  fulfilment. 

To  do  him  justice,  now  that  the  time  had  come  for 
an  acknowledgment  he  felt  no  temptation  to  evade 
the  judgment  of  his  own  mind,  nor  to  cheat  himself 
with  the  belief  that  the  boy  was  marked  for  ruin 


428  THE  DELIVERANCE 

before  he  saw  him — that  Will  had  worked  out,  in 
vicious  weakness,  his  own  end.  It  was  not  the 
weakness,  after  all,  that  he  had  played  upon— it  was 
rather  the  excitable  passion  and  the  whimpering 
fears  of  the  hereditary  drunkard.  He  remembered 
now  the  long  days  that  he  had  given  to  his  revenge, 
the  nights  when  he  had  tossed  sleepless  while  he 
planned  a  widening  of  the  breach  with  Fletcher. 
That,  at,  least  was  his  work,  and  his  alone — the  bitter 
hatred,  more  cruel  than  death,  with  which  the  two 
now  stood  apart  and  snarled.  It  was  a  human  life 
that  he  had  taken  in  his  hand — he  saw  that  now  in 
his  first  moment  of  awakening — a  life  that  he  had 
destroyed  as  deliberately  as  if  he  had  struck  it  dead 
before  him.  Day  by  day,  step  by  step,  silent, 
unswerving,  devilish,  he  had  kept  about  his  purpose, 
and  now  at  the  last  he  had  only  to  sit  still  and  watch 
his  triumph. 

With  a  sob,   he   bowed    his    head   in    his    clasped 
hands,  and  so  shut  out  the  light. 


CHAPTER   X 
By  the  Poplar  Spring 

The  next  day  he  watched  for  her  anxiously  until 
she  appeared  over  the  low  brow  of  the  hill,  her  arms 
filled  with  books,  and  Agag  trotting  at  her  side.  As 
she  descended  slowly  into  the  broad  ravine  where  he 
awaited  her  under  the  six  great  poplars  that  sur- 
rounded the  little  spring,  he  saw  that  she  wore  a  dress 
of  some  soft,  creamy  stuff  and  a  large  white  hat  that 
shaded  her  brow  and  eyes.  She  looked  younger, 
he  noticed,  than  she  had  done  in  her  black  gown,  and 
he  recalled  while  she  neared  him  the  afternoon  more 
than  six  years  before  when  she  had  come  suddenly 
upon  him  while  he  worked  in  his  tobacco. 

"So  you  are  present  at  the  roll-call?"  she  said, 
laughing,  as  she  sat  down  on  the  bench  beside  him 
and  spread  out  the  books  that  she  had  brought. 

"Why,  I've  been  sitting  here  for  half  an  hour,"  he 
answered. 

"What  a  shame— that's  a  whole  furrow  unploughed, 
isn't  it?" 

"Several  of  them;  but  I'm  not  counting  furrows 
now.  I'm  getting  ready  to  appal  you  by  my 
ignorance."  He  spoke  with  a  determined,  reckless 
gaiety  that  lent  a  peculiar  animation  to  his  face. 

"If  you  are  waiting  for  that,  you  are  going  to  be 
429 


43Q  THE  DELIVERANCE 

disappointed,"  she  replied,  smiling,  "for  I've  put  my 
heart  into  the  work,  and  I  was  born  and  patterned 
for  a  teacher;  I  always  knew  it.  We're  going  to  do 
English  literature  and  a  first  book  in  Latin." 

"Are  we  ? "  He  picked  up  the  Latin  grammar  and 
ran  his  fingers  lightly  through  the  pages.  "I  went 
a  little  way  in  this  once,"  he  said.  "I  got  as  far  as 
omnia  vincit  amor  and  stopped.  Tobacco  conquered 
me  instead." 

She  caught  up  his  gay  laugh.  "Well,  we'll  try  it 
over  again,"  she  returned,  and  held  out  the  book. 

An  hour  later,  when  the  first  lesson  was  over  and 
he  had  gone  back  to  his  work,  he  carried  with  him  a 
wonderful  exhilaration — a  feeling  as  if  he  had  with 
a  sudden  effort  burst  the  bonds  that  had  held  him 
to  the  earth.  By  the  next  day  the  elation  vanished 
and  a  great  heaviness  came  in  its  place,  but  for  a 
single  afternoon  he  had  known  what  it  was  to  thrill 
in  every  fiber  with  a  powerful  and  pure  emotion — an 
emotion  beside  which  all  the  cheap  sensations  of 
his  life  showed  stale  and  colourless.  While  the 
strangeness  of  this  mood  was  still  upon  him  he 
chanced  upon  Lila  and  Jim  Weatherby  standing 
together  by  the  gate  in  the  gray  dusk,  and  when 
presently  the  girl  came  back  alone  across  the  yard 
he  laid  his  hand  upon  her  arm  and  drew  her  over  to 
Tucker's  bench  beside  the  rose-bush. 

"Lila,  I've  changed  my  mind  about  it  all,"  he 
said. 

"About  what,  dear?" 

"About  Jim  and  you.  We  were  all  wrong — all  of 
us  except  Uncle  Tucker — wrong  from  the  very 
start.     You  musn't  mind  mother;  you  musn't  mind 


BY  THE  POPLAR  SPRING  431 

anybody.  Marry  Jim  and  be  happy,  if  he  can  make 
you  so." 

"Oh,  Christopher  ! "  gasped  Lila,  with  a  long  breath, 
lifting  her  lovely,  pensive  face.     "Oh,  Christopher!" 

"Don't  wait;  don't  put  it  off;  don't  listen  to  any 
of  us,"  he  urged  impatiently.  "Good  God!  If  you 
love  him  as  you  say  you  do,  why  have  you  let  all 
these  years  slip  away?" 

"But  you  thought  it  was  best,  Christopher.  You 
told  me  so." 

"Best !  There's  nothing  best  except  to  be  happy 
if  you  get  the  chance." 

"He  wants  me  to  marry  him  now,"  said  Lila, 
lowering  her  voice.  "Mother  will  never  know,  he 
thinks,  her  mind  grows  so  feeble;  he  wants  me  to 
marry  him  without  any  getting  ready — after  church 
one  Sunday  morning." 

Putting  his  arm  about  her,  Christopher  held  her 
for  a  moment  against  his  side.  "Then  do  it,"  he 
said  gravely,  as  he  stooped  and  kissed  her. 

And  several  weeks  later,  on  a  bright  first  Sunday 
in  May,  Lila  was  married,  after  morning  services,  in 
the  little  country  church,  and  Christopher  watched 
her  almost  eagerly  as  she  walked  home  across  the 
broad  meadows  powdered  white  with  daisies.  To 
the  reproachful  countenance  which  Cynthia  presented 
to  him  upon  his  return  to  the  house  he  gave  back 
a  careless  and  defiant  smile. 

"So  it's  all  over,"  he  announced  gaily,  "and  Lila's 
married  at  last." 

"Then  you're  satisfied,  I  hope,"  rejoined  Cynthia 
grimly,  "now  that  you've  dragged  us  down  to  the 
level  of  the  Weatherbys  and — the  Fletchers  ?     There's 


432  THE  DELIVERANCE 

nothing  more  to  be  said  about  it,  I  suppose,  and 
you  may  as  well  come  in  to  dinner." 

She  held  herself  stiffly  aloof  from  the  subject, 
with  her  head  flung  back  and  her  chin  expressing 
an  indignant  protest.  There  was  a  kind  of  rebellious 
scorn  in  the  way  in  which  she  carved  the  shoulder 
of  bacon  and  poured  the  coffee. 

"Good  Lord  !  It's  such  a  little  thing  to  make  a  fuss 
about,"  said  Tucker,  "when  you  remember,  my 
dear,  that  our  levels  aren't  any  bigger  than  chalk 
lines  in  the  eyes  of  God  Almighty." 

Cynthia  regarded  him  with  squinting  displeasure. 

"Oh,  of  course;  you  have  no  family  pride,"  she 
returned;  "but  I  had  thought  there  was  a  little 
left  in  Christopher." 

Christopher  shook  his  head,  smiling  indifferently. 
"Not  enough  to  want  blood  sacrifices,  "  he  responded, 
and  fell  into  a  detached  and  thoughtful  silence.  The 
vision  of  Lila  in  her  radiant  happiness  remained  with 
him  like  a  picture  that  one  has  beheld  by  some  rare 
chance  in  a  vivid  and  lovely  light;  and  it  was  still 
before  him  when  he  left  the  house  presently  and 
strolled  slowly  down  to  meet  Maria  by  the  poplar 
spring. 

The  bloom  of  the  meadows  filled  his  nostrils  with 
a  delicate  fragrance,  and  from  the  bough  of  an  old 
apple-tree  in  the  orchard  he  heard  the  low  afternoon 
murmurs  of  a  solitary  thrush.  May  was  on  the 
earth,  and  it  had  entered  into  him  as  into  the  piping 
birds  and  the  spreading  trees.  It  was  at  last  good 
to  be  alive — to  breathe  the  warm,  sweet  air,  and  to 
watch  the  sunshine  slanting  on  the  low,  green  hill. 
So   closely   akin   were   his   moods   to   those   of   the 


BY  THE  POPLAR  SPRING  433 

changing  seasons  that,  at  the  instant,  he  seemed  to 
feel  the  current  of  his  being  flow  from  the  earth 
beneath  his  feet— as  if  his  physical  nature  drew 
strength  and  nourishment  from  that  genial  and 
abundant  source. 

When  he  reached  the  spring  he  saw  Maria  appear 
on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and  with  a  quick,  joyous 
bound  his  heart  leaped  up  to  meet  her.  As  she 
came  toward  him  her  white  dress  swept  the  tall  grass 
from  her  feet,  and  her  shadow  flew  like  a  winged 
creature  straight  before  her.  There  was  a  vivid 
softness  in  her  face — a  look  at  once  bright  and  wistful 
— which  moved  him  with  a  new  and  strange 
tenderness. 

"I  was  a  little  late,"  she  explained,  as  they  met 
before  the  long  bench  and  she  laid  her  books  upon 
it,  "and  I  am  very  warm.     May  I  have  a  drink?" 

"From  a  bramble  cup?" 

"How  else?"  She  took  off  her  hat  and  tossed 
it  on  the  grass  at  her  feet;  then,  going  to  the  spring, 
she  waited  while  he  plucked  a  leaf  from  the  bramble 
and  bent  it  into  shape.  When  he  filled  it  and  held 
it  out,  she  placed  her  lips  to  the  edge  of  the  leaf  and 
looked  up  at  him  with  smiling  eyes  while  she  drank 
slowly  from  his  hand. 

"It  holds  only  a  drop,  but  how  delicious!"  she 
said,  seating  herself  again  upon  the  bench  and  leaning 
back  against  the  great  body  of  a  poplar.  Then  her 
eyes  fell  upon  his  clothes.  "Why,  how  very  much 
dressed  you  look!"  she  added. 

"Oh,  there's  a  reason  besides  Sunday — I've  just 
come  from  a  wedding.  Lila  has  married  after 
twelve  years  of  waiting. " 


434  THE  DELIVERANCE 

' '  Your  pretty  sister  !    And  to  whom  ? ' ' 

"To  Jim  Weatherby — old  Jacob's  son,  you  know. 
Now,  don't  tell  me  that  you  disapprove.  I  count 
on  your  good  sense  to  see  the  wisdom  of  it. " 

"So  it  is  your  pretty  sister,"  she  said  slowly,  "the 
woman  I  passed  in  the  road  the  other  day  and  held 
my  breath  as  I  did  before  Botticelli's  Venus." 

"Is  that  so?  Well,  she  doesn't  know  much  about 
pictures,  nor  does  Jim.  She  has  thrown  herself 
away,  Cynthia  says,  but  what  could  she  have  waited 
for,  after  all  ?  Nothing  had  ever  come  to  her,  and 
she  had  lived  thirty  years.  Besides,  she  will  be 
very  happy,  and  that's  a  good  deal,  isn't  it?" 

"It's  everything,"  said  Maria  quietly,  looking 
down  into  her  lap. 

"Everything?  And  if  you  had  been  born  in  her 
place?" 

"I  am  not  in  her  place  and  never  could  be;  but 
six  years  ago,  if  I  had  been  told  that  I  must  live 
here  all  my  life,  I  think  I  should  have  fretted  myself 
to  death:  that  would  have  happened  six  years  ago, 
for  I  was  born  with  a  great  aching  for  life,  and  I 
thought  then  that  one  could  live  only  in  the  big 
outside  world " 

"And  now?"  he  questioned,  for  she  paused  and 
sat  smiling  gravely  at  the  book  she  held. 

"Now  I  know  that  the  fulness  of  life  does  not 
come  from  the  things  outside  of  us,  and  that  we 
ourselves  must  create  the  beauty  in  which  we  live. 
Oh,  I  have  learned  so  much  from  misery, "  she  went 
on  softly,  "and  worst  of  all,  I  have  learned  what  it 
is  to  starve  for  bread  in  the  midst  of  sugar-plums.  " 

"And  it  was  worth  learning?" 


BY  THE  POPLAR  SPRING  435 

"The  knowledge  that  I  gained?  Oh,  yes,  yes;  for 
it  taught  me  how  to  be  happy.  I  went  down  into 
hell,"  she  said  passionately,  "and  I  came  out — clean. 
I  saw  evil  such  as  I  had  never  heard  of;  I  went  close 
to  it,  I  even  touched  it,  but  I  always  kept  my  soul 
very  far  away,  and  I  was  like  a  person  in  a  dream. 
The  more  I  saw  of  sin  and  ugliness  the  more  I 
dreamed  of  peace  and  beauty.  I  builded  me  my 
own  refuge,  I  fed  on  my  own  strength  day  and 
night — and  I  am  what  I  am " 

"The  loveliest  woman  on  God's  earth,"  he  said. 

"You  do  not  know  me,  "  she  answered,  and  opened 
the  book  before  her.  "It  was  the  story  of  the  Holy 
Grail,"  she  added,  "and  we  left  off  here.  Oh,  those 
brave  days  of  King  Arthur !  It  was  always  May 
then." 

He  touched  the  page  lightly  with  a  long  blade  of 
grass. 

"Read  yourself — this  once,"  he  pleaded,  "and 
let  me  listen. " 

Leaning  a  little  forward,  she  looked  down  and 
slowly  turned  the  pages,  her  head  bent  over  the  book, 
her  long  lashes  shading  the  faint  flush  in  her  cheeks. 
Over  her  white  dress  fell  a  delicate  lacework  from 
the  young  poplar  leaves,  flecked  here  and  there  with 
pale  drops  of  sunshine,  which  filtered  through  the 
thickly  clustered  boughs.  When  the  wind  passed 
in  the  high  tree-tops,  the  shadows,  soft  and  fine 
as  cobweb,  rippled  over  her  dress,  and  a  loose  strand 
of  her  dark  hair  waved  gently  about  her  ear.  The 
life — the  throbbing  vitality  within  her  seemed  to 
vivify  the  very  air  she  breathed,  and  he  felt  all  at 
once  that  the  glad  thrill  which  stirred  his  blood  was 


436  THE  DELIVERANCE 

but  a  response  to  the  fervent  spirit  which  spoke  in 
her  voice. 

"For  it  giveth  unto  all  lovers  courage,  that  lusty 
month  of  May,"  she  read,  "in  something  to  constrain 
<■  him  to  some  manner  of  thing  more  in  that  month  than 
in  any  other  month — for  then  all  herbs  and  trees  renew 
a  man  and  woman,  and  in  likewise  lovers  call  again 
to  mind  old  gentleness  and  old  service  and  many  kind 
deeds  that  were  forgotten  by  negligence." 

The  words  went  like  wine  to  his  head,  and  he  saw 
her  shadowy  figure  recede  and  dissolve  suddenly  as 
in  a  mist.  A  lump  rose  in  his  throat,  his  heart  leaped, 
and  he  felt  his  pulses  beating  madly  in  his  temples. 
He  drew  back,  dosing  his  eyes  to  shut  out  her  face; 
but  the  next  instant,  as  she  stirred  slightly  to  hold 
down  the  rippling  leaves,  he  bent  forward  and  laid 
his  hand  upon  the  one  that  held  the  open  book. 

Her  voice  fluttered  into  silence,  and,  raising  her 
head,  she  looked  up  in  tremulous  surprise.  He  saw  her 
face  pale  slowly,  her  lids  quiver  and  droop  above  her 
shining  eyes,  and  her  teeth  gleam  milk  white  between 
her  parted  lips.  A  tremor  of  alarm  ran  through 
her,  and  she  made  a  swift  movement  to  escape;  then, 
lifting  her  eyes  again,  she  looked  full  into  his  own, 
and,  stooping  quickly,  he  kissed  her  on  the  mouth. 

An  instant  afterward  the  book  fell  to  the  ground, 
and  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  stood  trembling  against 
the  body  of  the  poplar. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said;  "forgive  me — I  have 
ruined  it.  " 

Standing  beside  the  bench,  she  watched  him  with 
a  still,  grave  gentleness  before  which  his  gaze  dropped 
slowly  to  the  ground. 


BY  THE  POPLAR  SPRING  437 

"Yes,  you  have  ruined  this,"  she  answered, 
smiling,  "but  Latin  is  still  left." 

"It's  no  use,"  he  went  on  breathlessly.  "I  can't 
do  it;  it's  no  use.  " 

His  eyes  sought  hers  and  held  them  while  he 
made  a  single  step  forward;  then,  turning  quickly 
away,  he  went  from  her  across  the  meadow  to  the 
distant  wood. 


BOOK   FIFTH 

THE  ANCIENT  LAW 


THE    ANCIENT    LAW 

CHAPTER  I 

Christopher  Seeks  an  Escape 

A  clump  of  brambles  caught  at  his  feet,  and, 
stumbling  like  a  drunken  man,  he  threw  himself 
at  full  length  upon  the  ground,  pressing  his  fore- 
head on  the  young,  green  thorns.  A  century  seemed 
to  have  passed  since  his  flight  from  the  poplar 
spring,  and  yet  the  soft  afternoon  sunshine  was  still 
about  him  and  the  low  murmurs  of  the  thrush 
still  floated  from  the  old  apple-tree.  All  the  violence 
of  his  undisciplined  nature  had  rushed  into  revolt 
against  the  surrender  which  he  felt  must  come, 
and  he  was  conscious  at  the  instant  that  he  hated 
only  a  little  less  supremely  than  he  loved.  In  the 
end  the  greater  passion  would  triumph  over  him, 
he  knew;  but  as  he  lay  there  face  downward  upon 
the  earth  the  last  evil  instincts  of  his  revenge  battled 
against  the  remorse  which  had  driven  him  from 
Maria's  presence.  He  saw  himself  clearly  for  what 
he  was:  he  had  learned  at  last  to  call  his  sin  by  its 
right  name;  and  yet  he  felt  that  somewhere  in  the 
depths  of  his  being  he  had  not  ceased  to  love  the 
evil  that  he  had  done.  He  hated  Fletcher,  he  told 
himself,  as  righteously  as  ever,  but  between  himself 
and  the  face  of  his  enemy  a  veil  had  fallen — the  old 

44i 


442  THE  DELIVERANCE 

wrong  no  longer  stood  out  in  a  blaze  of  light.  A 
woman's  smile  divided  him  like  a  drawn  sword  from 
his  brutal  past,  and  he  had  lost  the  reckless  courage 
with  which  he  once  might  have  flung  himself  upon 
destruction. 

Rising  presently,  he  crossed  the  meadow  and 
went  slowly  back  to  his  work  in  the  stables,  keeping 
his  thoughts  with  an  effort  upon  his  accustomed 
tasks.  A  great  weariness  for  the  endless  daily  round 
of  small  things  was  upon  him,  and  he  felt  all  at  once 
that  the  emotion  struggling  within  his  heart  must 
burst  forth  at  last  and  pervade  the  visible  world. 
He  was  conscious  of  an  impulse  to  sing,  to  laugh, 
to  talk  in  broken  sentences  to  himself;  and  any 
utterance,  however  slight  and  meaningless,  seemed 
to  relieve  in  a  measure  the  nervous  tension  of  his 
thoughts. 

In  one  instant  there  entered  into  him  a  desperate 
determination  to  play  the  traitor — to  desert  his  post 
and  strike  out  boldly  and  alone  into  the  world. 
And  with  the  next  breath  he  saw  himself  living  to 
old  age  as  he  had  lived  from  boyhood — within  reach 
of  Maria's  hand,  meeting  her  fervent  eyes,  and  yet 
separated  from  her  by  a  distance  greater  than  God 
or  man  could  bridge.  With  the  thought  of  her  he 
saw  again  her  faint  smile  which  lingered  always  about 
her  mouth,  and  his  blood  stirred  at  the  memory  of  the 
kiss  which  she  had  neither  resisted  nor  returned. 

Cynthia,  searching  for  him  a  few  minutes  later, 
found  him  leaning  idly  against  the  mare's  stall, 
looking  down  upon  a  half-finished  nest  which  a 
house- wren  had  begun  to  build  upon  his  currycomb. 

"It's  a  pity  to  disturb  that,  Tucker  would  say," 


CHRISTOPHER  SEEKS  TO  ESCAPE      443 

he    observed,    motioning   toward    the    few   wisps    of« 
straw  on  the  ledge. 

"Oh,  she  can  start  it  somewhere  else,"  replied 
Cynthia  indifferently.  "They  have  sent  for  you 
from  the  store,  Christopher— it's  something  about 
one  of  the  servants,  I  believe^  They're  always 
getting  into  trouble  and  wanting  you  to  pull  them 
out."  The  descendants  of  the  old  Blake  slaves  were 
still  spoken  of  by  Cynthia  as  "the  servants,"  though 
they  had  been  free  men  and  women  for  almost 
thirty  years. 

Christopher  started  from  his  abstraction  and 
turned  toward  her  with  a  gesture  of  annoyance. 

"Well,  I'll  have  to  go  down,  I  suppose,"  he  said. 
"Has  mother  asked  for  me  to-day?" 

"Only  for  Jim  again — it's  always  Jim  now.  I 
declare,  I  believe  we  might  all  move  away  and  she'd 
never  know  the  difference  so  long  as  he  was  left. 
She  forgets  us  entirely  sometimes,  and  fancies  that 
father  is  alive  again." 

"It's  a  good  thing  Jim  amuses  her,  at  any  rate." 

An  expression  of  anger  drew  Cynthia's  brows 
together.  "Oh,  I  dare  say;  but  it  does  seem  hard 
that  she  should  have  grown  to  dislike  me  after  all 
I've  done  for  her.  There  are  times  when  she  won't 
let  me  even  come  in  the  room — when  she's  not 
herself,  you  know." 

Her  words  were  swallowed  in  a  sob,  and  he  stood 
staring  at  her  in  an  amazement  too  sudden  to  be 
mixed  with  pity. 

"And  you  have  given  up  your  whole  life  to  her," 
he  exclaimed,  appalled  by  the  injustice  of  the  god  of 
sacrifice. 


444  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Cynthia  put  up  one  knotted  hand  and  stroked 
back  the  thin  hair  upon  her  temples.  "It  was  all 
I  had  to  give,"  she  answered,  and  went  out  into 
the  yard. 

He  let  her  go  from  him  without  replying,  and  before 
her  pathetic  figure  had  reached  the  house  she  was 
blotted  entirely  from  his  thoughts,  for  it  was  a  part 
of  the  tragedy  of  her  unselfishness  that  she  had 
never  existed  as  a  distinct  personality  even  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  knew  and  loved  her. 

When  presently  he  passed  through  the  yard  on 
his  way  to  the  store,  he  saw  her  taking  in  the  dried 
clothes  from  the  old  lilac-bushes  and  called  back 
carelessly  that  he  would  be  home  to  supper.  Then, 
forgetting  her  lesser  miseries  in  his  own  greater  one, 
he  fell  into  his  troubled  brooding  as  he  swung  rapidly 
along  the  road. 

At  the  store  the.  usual  group  of  loungers  welcomed 
him,  and  among  them  he  saw  to  his  surprise  the 
cheerful  face  of  Jim  Weatherby,  a  little  clouded  by 
the  important  news  he  was  evidently  seeking  to 
hold  back. 

"I  tried  to  keep  them  from  sending  for  you, 
Christopher,"  the  young  man  explained.  "It  is  no 
business  of  yours — that  is  what  I  said." 

"Well,  it  seems  that  every  thriftless  nigger  in 
the  county  thinks  he's  got  a  claim  upon  you,  sho' 
enough,"  put  in  Tom  Spade.  "It  warn't  mo'n  last 
week  that  I  had  a  letter  from  the  grandson  of  yo' 
pa's  old  blacksmith  Buck,  sayin'  he  was  to  hang 
in  Philadelphia  for  somebody's  murder,  an'  that  I 
must  tell  Marse  Christopher  to  come  an'  git  him  off. 
Thar's  a  good  six  hunnard  of  'em,  black  an'  yaller 


CHRISTOPHER  SEEKS  TO  ESCAPE      445 

an'  it's  God  A 'mighty  or  Marse  Christopher  to  'em 
every  one." 

"What  is  it  now?"  asked  Christopher  a  little 
wearily,  taking  off  his  hat  and  running  his  hand 
through  his  thick,  fair  hair.  "If  anybody's  been 
stealing  chickens  they've  got  to  take  the  conse- 
quences." 

"Oh,  it's  not  chicken  stealin'  this  time;  it's  a 
blamed  sight  worse.  They  want  you  to  send  some- 
body over  to  Uncle  Isam's — you  remember  his  \K 
little  cabin,  five  miles  off  in  Morse's  woods — to  help 
him  bury  his  children  who  have  died  of  smallpox. 
There  are  four  of  'em  dead,  it  seems,  an'  the  rest  are 
all  down  with  the  disease.  Thar's  not  a  morsel  of 
food  in  the  house,  an'  not  a  livin'  nigger  will  go 
nigh  'em." 

"Uncle  Isam!"  repeated  Christopher,  as  if  trying 
to  recall  the  name.  "Why,  I  haven't  laid  eyes  upon 
the  man  for  years." 

"Very  likely;  but  he's  sent  you  a  message  by  a 
boy  who  was  gathering  pine  knots  at  the  foot  of  his 
hill.  He  was  to  tell  Marse  Christopher  that  he  had 
had  nothing  to  eat  for  two  whole  days  an'  his  chil- 
dren were  unburied.  Then  the  boy  got  scared  an' 
scampered  off,  an'  that  was  all." 

Christopher's  laugh  sounded  rather  brutal. 

"So  he  used  to  belong  to  us,  did  he?"  he  inquired. 

"He  was  yo'  pa's  own  coachman.  I  recollect  him 
plain  as  day,"  answered  Tom.  "I  warn't  mo'n  a 
child  then,  an'  he  used  to  flick  his  whip  at  my  bare 
legs  whenever  he  passed  me  in  the  voad." 

"Well,  what  is  to  be  done?"  asked  Christopher, 
turning  suddenly  upon  him. 


446  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"The  Lord  He  knows,  suh.  Thar's  not  a  nigger 
as  will  go  nigh  him,  an'  I'm  not  blamin'  'em;  not  I. 
Jim's  rilled  his  cart  with  food,  an'  he's  goin'  to  dump 
the  things  out  at  the  foot  of  the  hill;  then  maybe 
Uncle  Isam  can  crawl  down  an'  drag  'em  back. 
His  wife's  down  with  it,  too,  they  say.  She  was 
workin'  here  not  mo'n  six  months  ago,  but  she  left 
her  place  of  a  sudden  an'  went  back  again." 

Christopher  glanced  carelessly  at  the  little  cart 
waiting  in  the  road,  and  then  throwing  off  his  coat 
tossed  it  on  the  seat. 

"I'll  trouble  you  to  lend  me  your  overalls,  Tom," 
he  said,  "and  you  can  send  a  boy  up  to  the  house 
and  get  mine  in  exchange.  Put  what  medicines  you 
have  in  the  cart  ;  I'll  take  them  over  to  the  old  fool." 

"Good  Lord  !"  said  Tom,  and  mechanically  got  out 
of  his  blue  jean  clothes. 

"Now  don't  be  a  downright  ass,  Christopher," 
put  in  Jim  Weatherby.  "You've  got  your  mother 
on  your  hands,  you  know,  and  what  under  heaven 
have  you  to  do  with  Uncle  Isam  ?  I  knew  some 
foolishness  would  most  likely  come  of  it  if  they  sent 
up  for  you." 

"Oh,  he  used  to  belong  to  us,  you  see,"  explained 
Christopher  carelessly. 

"And  he's  been  an  ungrateful,  thriftless  free 
Negro  for  nearly  thirty  years " 

"That's  just  it — for  not  quite  thirty  years.  Look 
here,  if  you'll  drive  me  over  in  the  cart  and  leave 
the  things  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  I'll  be  obliged  to 
you.  I'll  probably  have  to  stay  out  a  couple  of 
weeks — until  there's  no  danger  of  my  bringing  back 
the  disease — so   I'll   wear  Tom's  overalls   and  leave 


CHRISTOPHER  SEEKS  TO  ESCAPE      447 

my  clothes  somewhere  in  the  woods.  Oh,  I'll  take 
care,  of  course  ;   I'm  no  fool." 

"You're  surer  of  that  than  I  am,"  returned  Jim, 
thinking  of  Lila.  "I  can't  help  feeling  that  there's 
some  truth  in  father's  saying  that  a  man  can't  be 
a  hero  without  being  a  bit  of  a  fool  as  well.  For 
God's  sake,  don't,  Christopher.  You  have  no 
right " 

"No,  I  have  no  right,"  repeated  Christopher,  as 
he  got  into  the  cart  and  took  up  the  hanging  reins. 
A  sudden  animation  had  leaped  into  his  face  and 
his  eyes  were  shining.  It  was  the  old  love  of  a  "risk 
for  the  sake  of  the  risk"  which  to  Tucker  had  always 
seemed  to  lack  the  moral  elements  of  true  courage, 
and  the  careless  gaiety  with  which  he  spoke  robbed 
the  situation  of  its  underlying  somber  horror. 

Jim  swung  himself  angrily  upon  the  seat  and 
touched  the  horse  lightly  with  the  whip.  "And 
there's  your  mother  sitting  at  home — and  Cynthia — 
and   Lila,"   he   said. 

Christopher  turned  on  him  a  face  in  whose  expres- 
sion he  found  a  mystery  that  he  could  not  solve. 

"I  can't  help  it,  Jim,  to  save  my  life  I  can't," 
he  answered.  "It  isn't  anything  heroic;  you  know 
that  as  well  as  I.  I  don't  care  a  straw  for  Uncle 
Isam  and  his  children,  but  if  I  didn't  go  up  there 
and  bury  those  dead  darkies  I'd  never  have  a  mo- 
ment's peace.  I've  been  everything  but  a  skulk- 
ing coward,  and  I  can't  turn  out  to  be  that  at  the 
end.      It's  the  way  I'm  made." 

"Well,  I  dare  say  we're  made  different,"  responded 
Jim  rather  dryly,  for  it  was  his  wedding  day  and  he 
was  going  farther  from  his  bride.     "  But  for  my  part, 


448  THE  DELIVERANCE 

I  can't  help  thinking  of  that  poor  blind  old  lady, 
and  how  helpless  they  all  are.  Yes,  we're  made 
different.     I    reckon   that's   what    it    means." 

The  cart  jogged  on  slowly  through  the  fading 
(  sunshine,  and  when  at  last  it  came  to  the  foot  of 
the  hill  where  Uncle  Isam  lived  Christopher  got 
out  and  shouldered  a  bag  of  meal. 

"You'll  run  the  place,  I  know,  and  look  after 
mother  while    I'm   away,"    he   said. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to,"  returned  Jim;  and 
then  his  ill-humour  vanished  and  he  smiled  and 
held  out  his  hand.  "Good-by,  old  man.  God  bless 
you,"    he   said   heartily. 

Sitting  there  in  the  road,  he  watched  Christopher 
pass  out  of  sight  under  the  green  leaves,  stooping 
slightly  beneath  the  bag  of  meal  and  whistling  a 
merry  scrap  of  an  old  song.  At  the  instant  it  came 
to  Jim  with  the  force  of  a  blow  that  this  was  the 
first  cheerful  sound  he  had  heard  from  him  for 
weeks;  and,  still  pondering,  he  turned  the  horse's 
head  and  drove  slowly  home  to  his  own  happiness. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Measure  of  Maria 

When,  two  weeks  later,  Christopher  reached  home 
again,  he  was  met  by  Tucker's  gentle  banter  and 
Lila's   look   of   passionate   reproach. 

"Oh,  dear,  you  might  have  died!"  breathed  the 
girl   with   a   shudder. 

Christopher  laughed. 

"So  might  Uncle  Tucker  when  he  went  into  the 
war,"  was  his  retort.  He  was  a  little  thinner,  a 
little  graver,  and  the  sunburn  upon  his  face 
had  faded  to  a  paler  shade.  After  the  short  absence 
his  powerful  figure  struck  them  as  almost  gigantic; 
physically,  he  had  never  appeared  more  impressive 
than  he  did  standing  there  in  the  sunlight  that  filled 
the  kitchen  doorway. 

"But  that  was  different,"  protested  Lila,  flushing, 
"and  this — this — why,  you  hardly  knew  Uncle 
Isam  when  you  passed  him  in  the  road." 

"And  half  the  time  forgot  to  speak  to  him," 
added  Tucker,  laughing.  His  eyes  were  on  the 
young  man's  figure,  and  they  grew  a  little  wistful, 
as  they  always  did  in  the  presence  of  perfect  mas- 
culine strength.  "Well,  I'm  glad  your  search  for 
adventures  didn't  end  in  disaster,"  he  added  pleas- 
antly. 

To  Christopher's  surprise,  Cynthia  was  the  single 

449 


450  THE  DELIVERANCE 

member  of  the  family  who  showed  a  sympathy  with 
his  reckless  knight  errantry.  "There  was  nothing 
else  for  you  to  do,  of  course,"  she  said  in  a  resolute; 
voice,  lifting  her  worn  face  where  the  lines  had  deep- 
"  ened  in  his  absence;  "he  used  to  be  father's  coach- 
man before  the  war." 

She  had  gone  from  the  kitchen  as  she  spoke,  and 
Christopher,  following  her,  threw  an  anxious  glance 
along  the  little  platform  to  the  closed  door  of  the 
house. 

"And  mother,   Cynthia?"   he   asked   quickly. 

"  Her  mind  still  wanders,  but  at  times  she  seems  to 
come  back  to  herself  for  a  little  while,  and  only  this 
morning  she  awoke  from  a  nap  and  asked  for  you 
quite  clearly.     We  told  her  you  had  gone  hunting." 

"May   I   see   her  now?     Who   is   with  her?" 

"Jim.     He  has  been  so  good." 

The  admission  was  wrung  shortly  from  her  rigid 
honesty,  and  there  was  no  visible  softening  of  her 
grim  reserve,  when,  entering  the  house  with  Christo- 
pher, she  found  herself  presently  beside  Jim  Weather- 
by,  who  was  chatting  merrily  in  Mrs.  Blake's  room. 

The  old  lady,  shrivelled  and  faded  as  the  dried 
goldenrod  which  filled  the  great  jars  on  the  hearth, 
lay  half  hidden  among  the  pillows  in  her  high  white 
bed,  her  vacant  eyes  fixed  upon  the  sunshine  which 
fell  through  the  little  window.  At  Christopher's 
step  her  memory  flickered  back  for  an  instant,  and 
the  change  showed  in  the  sudden  animation  of  her 
glance. 

"I  was  dreaming  of  your  father,  my  son,  and  you 
have  his  voice." 

"I  am  like  him  in  other  ways,  I  hope,  mother." 


THE  MEASURE  OF  MARIA  451 

"If  I  could  only  see  you,  Christopher — it  is  so  hard 
to  remember.  You  had  golden  curls  and  wore  a 
white  pinafore.  I  trimmed  it  with  the  embroidery 
from  my  last  set  of  petticoats.  And  your  hands 
were  dimpled  all  over;  you  would  suck  your  thumb: 
there  was  no  breaking  you,  though  I  wrapped  it  in  a 
rag  soaked  in  quinine " 

"That  was  almost  thirty  years  ago,  mother," 
broke  in  Cynthia,  catching  her  breath  sharply.  "He 
is  a  man  now,  and  big — oh,  so  big — and  his  hair  has 
grown  a  little  darker.  " 

"I  know,  Cynthia;  I  know,"  returned  Mrs.  Blake, 
with  a  peevish  movement  of  her  thin  hand,  "but 
you  won't  let  me  remember.  I  am  trying  to  remem- 
ber." She  fell  to  whimpering  like  a  hurt  child,  and 
then  growing  suddenly  quiet,  reached  out  until  she 
touched  Christopher's  head.  "You're  a  man,  I 
know,"  she  said,  "older  than  your  father  was  when 
his  first  child  was  born.  There  have  been  two 
crosses  in  my  life,  Christopher — my  blindness  and  my 
never  having  heard  the  voices  of  my  grandchildre'n 
playing  in  the  house.  Such  a  roomy  old  house,  too, 
with  so  much  space  for  them  to  fill  with  cheerful 
noise.  I  always  liked  noise,  you  know;  it  tells  of 
life,  and  never  disturbs  me  so  long  as  it  is  pleasant. 
What  I  hate  is  the  empty  silence  that  reminds  one 
of  the  grave." 

She  was  quite  herself  now,  and,  bending  over,  he 
kissed  the  hand  upon  the  counterpane. 

"Oh,  mother,  mother,  if  I  could  only  have  made 
you   happy!" 

"And   you   couldn't,    Christopher?" 

"I  couldn't  marry,   dear;   ^couldn't." 


452  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"There  was  no  one,  you  mean — no  woman  whom 
you  could  have  loved  and  who  would  have  given 
you  children.  Surely  there  are  still  good  and 
gentle  women  left  in  the  world." 

"There  was  none  for  me." 

She  sighed  hopelessly. 
T    "You  have  never — never  had  a  low  fancy,  Chris- 
topher?" 

"Never,  mother." 

"Thank  God;  it  is  one  thing  I  could  not  forgive. 
A  gentleman  may  have  his  follies,  your  father  used 
to  say,  but  he  must  never  stoop  for  them.__Xet 
him  keep  to  his  own  level,  even  in  his  indiscretions. 
Ah,  your  father  had  his  faults,  my  son,  but  he  never 
forgot  for  one  instant  in  his  life  that  he  was  born  a 
gentleman.  He  was  a  good  husband,  too,  a  good 
husband,  and  I  was  married  to  him  for  nearly  forty 
years.  The  greatest  trial  of  my  marriage  was  that 
he  would  throw  his  cigar  ashes  on  the  floor.  Women 
think  so  much  of  little  things,  you  know,  and  I've 
always  felt  that  I  should  have  been  a  happier  woman 
if  he  had  learned  to  use  an  ash-tray.  But  he  never 
would — he  never  would,  though  I  gave  him  one 
every   Christmas   for   almost    forty   years. " 

Falling  silent,  her  hands  played  fitfully  upon  the 
counterpane,  and  when  next  she  spoke  the  present 
had  slipped  from  her  and  her  thoughts  had  gone 
back  to  her  early  triumphs. 

She  wandered  aimlessly  and  waveringly  on  in  a 
feeble  vacancy,  and  Christopher,  after  watching 
her  for  an  agonised  moment,  left  the  room  and 
went  out  into  the  fresh  air  of  the  yard.  He  could 
always   escape  by  flight   from  the   slow  death-bed; 


THE  MEASURE  OF  MARIA  453 

it  was  Cynthia  who  faced  hourly  the  final  tragedy 
of   a   long   and   happy   life. 

The  thought  of  Will  had  oppressed  him  like  a  night- 
mare for  the  last  two  weeks,  and  it  was  almost  uncon- 
sciously that  he  turned  now  in  the  direction  of  the 
store  and  passed  presently  into  the  shaded  lane 
leading  to  Sol  Peterkin's.  His  mood  was  heavy 
upon  him,  and  so  deep  was  the  abstraction  in  which 
he  walked  that  it  was  only  when  he  heard  his  name 
called  softly  from  a  little  distance  that  he  looked 
up  to  find  Maria  Fletcher  approaching  him  over  the 
pale  gray  shadows  in  the  road.  Her  eyes  were 
luminous,  and  she  stretched  her  hand  toward  him 
in   a  happy  gesture. 

"Oh,  if  you  only  knew  how  wonderful  I  think  you  ! " 
she  cried  impulsively. 

He  held  her  hand  an  instant,  and  then  letting  it 
fall,  withdrew  his  gaze  slowly  from  her  exalted  look. 
The  pure  heights  of  her  fervour  were  beyond  the 
reach  of  his  more  earthly  level,  and  as  he  turned 
from  her  some  old  words  of  her  own  were  respoken 
in  his  ears:  "Faith  and  doubt  are  mere  empty 
forms  until  we  pour  out  the  heart's  blood  that  vivi- 
fies them."  It  was  her  heart's  blood  that  she  had 
put  into  her  dreams,  and  it  was  this,  he  told  himself, 
that  gave  her  mystic  visions  their  illusive  appearance 
of  reality.  Beauty  enveloped  her  as  an  atmosphere; 
it  softened  her  sternest  sacrifice,  it  coloured  her 
barest  outlook,  it  transformed  daily  the  common 
road  in  which  she  walked,  and  hourly  it  sustained 
and  nourished  her,  as  it  nourished  poor,  crippled 
Tucker  on  his  old  pine  bench.  The  eye  of  the  spirit 
was  theirs — this  Christopher  had  learned  at  last ;  and 


454  THE  DELIVERANCE 

he  had  learned,  also,  that  for  him  there  still  remained 
only  the  weak,  blurred  vision  of  the  flesh. 

"You  make  me  feel  the  veriest  hypocrite,"  he 
said  at  the  end  of  the  long  pause. 

She  shook  her  head.  "And  that  you  are  surely 
not." 

"So   you   still   believe   in   me?" 

"It's  not  belief — I  know  in  you." 

"Well,  don't  praise  me;  don't  admire  me;  don't 
pretend,  for  God's  sake,  that  I'm  anything  better 
than   the    brute    you    see." 

"I  don't  pretend  anything  better,"  she  protested; 
"and  when  you  talk  like  this  it  only  makes  me  feel 
the  more   keenly   your  wonderful   courage." 

"I  haven't  any,"  he  burst  out  almost  angrily. 
"Not  an  atom,  do  you  hear?  Whatever  I  may 
appear  on  top,  at  bottom  I  am  a  great  skulking 
coward,  and  nothing  more.  Why,  I  couldn't  even 
stay  and  take  my  punishment  the  other  day.  I 
sneaked  off  like  a  hound." 

"Your  punishment?"  she  faltered,  and  he  saw  her 
lashes    tremble. 

"For  the  other  day — for  the  afternoon  by  the 
poplar  spring.  I've  been  wanting  to  beg  your  par- 
don on  my  knees." 

Her  lashes  were  raised  steadily,  and  she  regarded 
him  gravely  while  a  slight  frown  gathered  her  dark 
brows.  She  was  still  humanly  feminine  enough  to 
find  the  apology  harder  to  forgive  than  the  offense. 

"Oh,  I  had  forgotten,"  she  said  a  little  coldly. 
"So  that  was,  after  all,  why  you  ran  away?" 

"It   was   not   the   only  reason." 

"And  the   other?" 


THE  MEASURE  OF  MARIA  455 

He  closed  his  eyes  suddenly  and  drew  back. 

"I  ran  away  because  I  knew  if  I  stayed  I  should 
do  it  again  within  two  seconds,"  he  replied. 

A  little  blue  flower  was  growing  in  the  red  clay 
wheel-rut  at  her  feet,  and,  stooping,  she  caressed  it 
gently   without   plucking  it. 

"It  was  very  foolish,"  she  said  in  a  quiet  voice; 
"but  I  had  forgotten  it,  and  you  should  have  let  it 
rest.  Afterward,  you  did  such  a  brave,  splendid 
thing." 

"I  did  nothing  but  run  from  you,"  he  persisted, 
losing  his  head.  "If  I  hadn't  gone  to  Uncle  Isam 
I'd  have  done  something  equally  reckless  in  a  different 
way.  I  wanted  to  get  away  from  you — to  escape 
you,  but  I  couldn't — I  couldn't.  You  were  with 
me  always,  night  and  day,  in  those  God-forsaken 
woods.  I  never  lost  you  for  one  instant,  never.  I 
tried  to,  but   I   couldn't." 

"You  couldn't,"  she  repeated,  and,  rising,  faced 
him  calmly.  Then  before  the  look  in  his  eyes  her 
own  wavered  and  fell  slowly  to  the  ground,  and  he 
saw  her  quiver  and  grow  white  as  if  a  rough  wind 
blew  over  her.  With  an  effort  he  steadied  himself 
and  turned  away. 

"There  is  but  one  thing  to  do,"  he  said,  holding 
his  breath  in  the  pause;  "it's  a  long  story,  but  if 
you  will  listen  patiently — and  it  is  very  long — I 
will  tell  you  a41."  Following  him,  she  crossed  the 
carpet  of  pine  needles  and  sat  down  upon  the  end 
of  a  fallen  log. 

"Tell  me  nothing  that  you  do  not  care  to,"  she 
answered,  and  s^t  waiting. 

"It    began   long   ago,    when   we  were   both  little 


456  THE  DELIVERANCE 

children,"  he  went  on,  and  then  going  back  from  her 
into  the  lane  he  stood  staring  down  upon  the 
little  blue  flower  blooming  in  the  wheel-rut.  She 
saw  his  shadow,  stretching  across  the  road,  blurred 
"  into  the  pale  dusk  of  the  wood,  uncertain,  somber, 
gigantic  in  its  outline.  His  hat  was  lying  on  the 
ground  at  her  feet,  and,  lifting  it,  she  ran  her  fingers 
idly  along  the  brim. 

For  a  time  the  silence  lasted;  then  coming  back 
to  her,  he  sat  down  on  the  log  and  dropped  his 
clasped  hands  between  his  knees.  She  heard  his 
heavy  breathing,  and  something  in  the  sound  drew 
her  toward  him  with  a  sympathetic  movement. 

"Ah,  don't  tell  me,  don't  tell  me,"  she  entreated. 

"You  must  listen  patiently,"  he  returned,  without 
looking  at  her,  "and  not  interrupt— above  all,  not 
interrupt." 

She  bent  her  head.  >(I  Avill  not  speak  a  word 
nor  move  a  finger  until  the  end,"  she  promised;  and 
leaning  a  little  forward,  with  his  eyes  on  the  ground 
and  his  hands  hanging  listlessly  between  his  knees, 
he  began  his  story. 

The  air  was  so  still  that  his  voice  sounded  strangely 
harsh  in  the  silence,  but  presently  she  heard  the 
soughing  of  the  pine  trees  far  up  above,  and  while  it 
lasted  it  deadened  the  jarring  discord  of  the  human 
tones.  She  sat  quite  motionless  upon  the  log,  not 
lifting  a  finger  nor  speaking  a  word,  as  she  had 
promised,  and  her  gaze  was  fixed  steadily  upon  a 
bit  of  dried  fern  growing  between  the  roots  of  a  dead 
tree. 

"It  went  on  so  for  five  years,"  he  slowly  finished, 
"and    it    was    from     beginning    to    end    deliberate, 


THE  MEASURE  OF  MARIA  457 

devilish  revenge.  I  meant  from  the  first  to  make 
him  what  he  is  to-day.  I  meant  to  make  him  hate 
his  grandfather  as  he  does — I  meant  to  make  him  the 
hopeless  drunkard  that  he  is.  It  is  all  my  work — 
every  bit  of  it — as  you  see  it  now." 

He  paused,  but  her  eyes  clung  to  the  withered 
fern,  and  so  quiet  was  her  figure  that  it  seemed  as 
if  she  had  not  drawn  breath  since  he  began.  Her 
faint  smile  was  still  sketched  about  the  corners  of 
her  mouth,  and  her  fingers  were  closed  upon  the 
brim  of  his  harvest  hat. 

"For  five  years  I  was  like  that,"  he  went  on  again. 
"I  did  not  know,  I  did  not  care — I  wanted  to  be 
a  beast.     Then  you  came  and  it  was  different." 

For  the  first  time  she  turned  and  looked  at  him. 

"And  it  was  different?"  she  repeated  beneath  her 
breath. 

"Oh,  there's  nothing  to  say  that  will  make  things 
better:  I  know  that.  If  you  had  not  come  I  should 
never  have  known  myself  nor  what  I  had  been. 
It  was  like  a  thunderclap — the  whole  thing;  it  shook 
me  off  my  feet  before  I  saw  what  it  meant — 
before  I  would  acknowledge  even  to  myself  that " 

"That?"  she  questioned  in  a  whisper,  for  he  had 
bitten  back  the  words. 

"That  I  love  you." 

As  he  spoke  she  slipped  suddenly  to  her  knees  and 
lay  with  her  face  hidden  on  the  old  log,  while  her 
smothered  sobs  ran  in  long  shudders  through  her 
body.  A  murmur  reached  him  presently,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  she  was  praying  softly  in  her 
clasped  hands;  but  when  in  a  new  horror  of  himself 
he   made   a   movement   to   rise   and   slip  away,  she 


458  THE  DELIVERANCE 

looked  up  and  gently  touched  him  detainingly  on 
the  arm. 

"Oh,  how  unhappy — how  unhappy  you  have  been  !" 
she  said. 

"It  is  not  that  I  mind,"  he  answered.  "If  I 
could  take  all  the  misery  of  it  I  shouldn't  care, 
but  I  have  made  you  suffer,  and  for  the  sin  that  is 
mine  alone." 

For  a  moment  she  was  silent,  breathing  quickly 
between  parted  lips;  then  turning  with  an  impulsive 
gesture,  she  laid  her  cheek  upon  the  hand  hanging 
at  his  side. 

"Not  yours  alone,"  she  said  softly,  "for  it  has 
become  mine,  too." 

Before  the  wonder  of  her  words  he  stared  at  her 
with  dazed  eyes,  while  their  meaning  shook  him 
slowly  to  his  senses. 

"Maria!"  he  called  out  sharply  in  the  voice  of 
one  who  speaks  from  a  distance. 

She  met  his  appeal  with  a  swift  outward  move- 
ment of  her  arms,  and,  bending  over,  laid  her  hands 
gently  upon  his  head. 

"Mine,  too,  Christopher— mine,  too,"  she  repeated, 
"for  I  take  the  blame  of  it,  and  I  will  share  in  the 
atonement.  My  dear,  my  dear,  is  love  so  slight 
a  thing  that  it  would  share  the  joy  and  leave  the 
sorrow — that  it  would  take  the  good  and  reject  the 
evil?  Why,  it  is  all  mine!  All!  All!  What  you 
have  been  I  was  also;  what  I  am  to-day  you  will  be. 
I  have  been  yours  since  the  first  instant  }^ou 
looked  upon  me." 

With  a  sob  he  caught  her  hands  and  crushed 
them  in  his  own. 


THE  MEASURE  OF  MARIA  459 

"Then  this  is  love,  Maria?" 

"It  has  been  love — always." 

"  From  the  first — as  with  me?" 

"As  with  you.  Beloved,  there  is  not  a  wrong 
on  this  earth  that  could  come  between  us  now,  for 
there  is  no  room  in  my  heart  where  it  might  enter. 
There  can  be  no  sin  against  love  which  love  does  not 
acknowledge." 

Falling  apart,  their  hands  dropped  before  them, 
and  they  stood  looking  at  each  other  in  a  silence 
that  went  deeper  than  words.  She  felt  his  gaze 
enveloping  her  in  warmth  from  head  to  foot,  but  he 
still  made  no  movement  to  draw  nearer,  for  there 
are  moments  when  the  touch  of  the  flesh  grows 
meaningless  before  the  mute  appeal  of  the  spirit. 
In  that  one  speechless  instant  there  passed  between 
them  the  pledges  and  the  explanations  of  years. 

Suddenly  the  light  flamed  in  his  face,  and  opening 
his  arms,  he  made  a  single  step  toward  her;  but 
melting  into  tears,  she  turned  from  him  and  ran  out 
into  the  road. 


CHAPTER     III 
Will's  Ruin 

Blinded  by  tears,  she  went  swiftly  back  along  the 
road  into  the  shadows  which  thickened  beyond 
the  first  short  bend.  Will  must  be  saved  at  any 
cost,  by  any  sacrifice,  she  told  herself  with  passionate 
insistence.  He  must  be  saved  though  she  gave  up 
her  whole  life  to  the  work  of  his  redemption,  though 
she  must  stand  daily  and  hourly  guard  against  his 
weakness.  He  must  be  saved,  not  for  his  own  sake 
alone,  but  because  it  was  the  one  way  in  which  she 
might  work  out  Christopher's  salvation.  As  she 
went  on,  scheme  after  scheme  beckoned  and  repelled 
her;  plan  after  plan  was  caught  at  only  to  be  rejected, 
and  it  was  at  last  with  a  sinking  heart,  though  still 
full  of  high  resolves,  that  she  turned  from  the  lane 
into  a  strip  of  "corduroy  road,"  and  so  came  quickly 
to  the  barren  little  farm  adjoining  Sol  Peterkin's. 

Will  was  sitting  idly  on  an  overturned  wheel- 
barrow beside  the  woodpile,  and  as  she  approached 
him  she  assumed  with  an  effort  a  face  of  cheerful 
courage. 

"  Oh,  Will,  I  thought  you'd  gone  to  work.  You 
promised  me !" 

"Well,  I  haven't,  and  there's  an  end  of  it,"  he 
returned  irritably,  chewing  hard  on  a  chip  he  had 
picked  up  from  the   ground;   "and  what's  more,   I 

461 


462  THE  DELIVERANCE 

shan't  go  till  I  see  the  use.  It's  killing  me  by  inches. 
I  tell  you  I'm  not  strong  enough  to  stand  a  life  like 
this.  Drudge,  drudge,  drudge;  there's  nothing  else 
except  the  little  spirit  I  get  from  drink." 

"And  that  ruins  you.  Oh,  don't,  don't.  I'll  go 
on  my  knees  to  you;  I'll  work  for  you  like  a  servant 
day  and  night;  I'll  sell  my  very  clothes  to  help  you, 
if    you'll    only    promise  me  never  to   drink    again." 

"You  a  servant!"  said  Will,  and  laughed  shortly 
while  he  looked  her  over  with  raised  eyebrows. 
"Why,  your  stockings  would  keep  me  in  cigarettes 
for  a  week." 

A  flush  crossed  Maria's  face,  and  she  glanced 
down  guiltily,  letting  her  black  skirt  fall  above  the 
lace  upon  her  petticoat.  "I  have  bought  nothing 
since  coming  home,"  she  responded  presently  with 
quiet  dignity;  "these  belong,  with  my  old  luxuries, 
to  a  past  life.  There  were  a  great  many  of  them, 
and  it  will  fortunately  take  me  a  long  time  to  wear 
them  out." 

"Oh,  I  don't  begrudge  them,"  returned  Will,  a 
little  ashamed  of  his  show  of  temper;  "fine  clothes 
suit  you,  and  I  hope  you  will  squeeze  them  out  of 
grandpa  all  you  can.  It's  as  good  a  way  for  him  to 
spend  his  money  as1  any  others  and  it  doesn't  hurt 
me  so  long  as  he'll  never  let  me  see  the  colour  of 
a  cent." 

"But  your  promise,  dear  ?     Will  you  promise  me ? " 

He  lifted  his  sullen  face  toward  her  kind  eyes, 
then  turning  away,  kicked  listlessly  at  the  rotting 
chips. 

"What's  the  use  in  promising?  I  wouldn't  keep 
it,"   he  replied.     "Why,  there  are  times  when  but 


WILL'S  RUIN  463 

for  whisky  I'd  go  mad.  It's  the  life,  I  tell  you, 
that's  killing  me,  not  drink.  If  things  were  different 
I  shouldn't  crave  it — I  shouldn't  miss  it,  even.  Why, 
for  three  months  after  I  married  Molly  I  didn't  touch 
a  single  drop,  and  I'd  have  kept  it  up,  too,  except  for 
grandpa's  devilment.  It's  his  fault;  he  drove  me 
back  to  it  as  clear  as  day." 

His  weak  mouth  quivered,  and  he  sucked  in  his 
breath  in  the  way  he  had  inherited  from  Fletcher. 
The  deep  flush  across  his  face  faded  slowly,  and 
dropping  his  restless,  bloodshot  eyes,  he  dug  his  foot 
into  the  mould  with  spasmodic  twitches  of  his  body. 
His  clothes  appeared  to  have  been  flung  upon  him,  and 
his  cravat  and  loosened  collar  betrayed  the  lack  of 
neatness  which  had  always  repelled  Maria  so  strongly 
in  her  grandfather.  As  she  watched  him  she  won- 
dered with  a  pang  that  she  had  never  noticed  until 
to-day  the  resemblance  he  bore  to  the  old  man  at 
the  Hall. 

"But  one  must  be  patient,  Will,"  she  said  help- 
lessly after  a  moment's  thought;  "there's  always 
hope  of  a  mending — and  as  far  as  that  goes,  grand- 
father may  relent  to-morrow." 

"Relent?  Pshaw!  I'd  like  to  see  him  do  it 
this  side  of  hell.  Let  him  die:  that's  all  I  ask  of 
him.  His  room  is  a  long  sight  better  than  his 
company,  and  you  may  tell  him  I  said  so." 

"What  good  would  come  of  that?" 

"  I  don't  want  any  good  to  come  of  it.  Why  should 
I  ?  He's  brought  me  to  this  pass  with  his  own 
hand." 

"But  surely  it  was  partly  your  fault.  He  loved 
you  once." 


464  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Nonsense.  He  wanted  a  dog  to  badger,  that 
was  all.     Christopher  Blake  said  so." 

"Christopher  Blake  !  Oh,  Will,  Will,  if  you  could 
only  understand ! " 

She  turned  hopelessly  away  from  him  and  looked 
with  despairing  eyes  over  the  ploughed  fields  which 
blushed  faintly  in  the  sunshine. 

"So  your  spring  ploughing  is  all  done,"  she  said 
at  last,  desisting  from  her  attempt  to  soften  his 
sullen  obduracy,  "and  you  have  been  working  harder 
than  I  knew." 

"Oh,  it's  not  I,"  returned  Will  promptly,  his  face 
clearing  for  the  first  time.  "It's  all  Christopher's 
work;  he  ploughed  that  field  just  before  he  went 
away.  Do  you  see  that  new  cover  over  the  well  ? 
He  knocked  that  up  the  last  morning  he  was  here, 
and  made  those  steps  before  the  front  door  at  the 
same  time.  Now,  he's  the  kind  of  friend  worth 
having,  and  no  mistake.  But  for  him  I'd  have 
landed  in  the  poorhouse  long  ago." 

Maria's  gaze  left  the  field  and  returned  to  Will's 
face,  where  it  lingered  wistfully. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  what  it  was  all  about, 
Will?"  she  asked,  "the  old  trouble  between  him 
and   grandfather  ? ' ' 

"Some  silly  property  right,  I  believe;  I  can't 
remember.  Did  you  ever  see  anybody  yet  with 
whom  grandpa  was  on  decent  terms?" 

"He  used  to  be  with  you,  Will." 

"Only  so  long  as  I  wore  short  breeches  and  he 
could  whack  me  over  the  head  whenever  he  had  a 
mind  to.  I  tell  you  I'd  rather  try  to  get  along  with 
Beelzebub  himself." 


WILL'S  RUIN  465 

"Have  you  ever  tried  peace-making  in  earnest, 
I    wonder?" 

Twirling  a  chip  between  his  thumb  and  fore- 
finger, he  flirted  it  angrily  at  a  solitary  hen  scratch- 
ing in  the  mould. 

"Why,  shortly  after  my  marriage  I  went  over 
there  and  positively  wiped  up  the  floor  with  myself. 
I  offered  him  everything  under  heaven  in  the  shape 
of  good  behaviour,  and,  by  Jove  !  I  meant  it,  too. 
I'd  have  stopped  drinking  then;  I'd  even  have  given 
up  Christopher  Blake " 

"Did  you  tell  him  that?" 

"Did  I  ever  tell  a  thunderstorm  I'd  run  indoors? 
It  was  enough  to  get  away  with  a  whole  skin — he 
left  me  little  more.  And  the  day  afterward,  by  the 
way,  he  sent  me  the  deeds  to  this  rotten  farm,  and 
warned  me  that  he'd  shoot  me  down  if  I  ever  set  foot 
at  the  Hall." 

"And  there  has  been  no  softening — no  wavering 
since  ? ' ' 

Will  shook  his  head  with  a  brutal  laugh.  "Oh, 
you  heard  of  our  meeting  in  the  road  and  what 
came  of  it.  I  told  him  I  was  starving:  he  answered 
that  he  wasn't  responsible  for  all  the  worthless 
paupers  in  the  county.  Then  I  cursed  him,  and  he 
broke  his  stick  on  my  shoulders.  I  say,  Maria," 
he  wound  up  desperately,  "do  you  think  he'll  live 
forever?" 

She  kept  her  eyes  upon  him  without  answering, 
fearing  to  tell  him  that  by  the  terms  of  the  new  will 
he  could  never  come  into  his  share  of  Fletcher's 
wealth. 

"Has  he  ever  seen  Molly?"  she  asked  suddenly, 


466  THE  DELIVERANCE 

while  an  unreasonable  hope  shot  through  her  heart. 
"Does  he  know  about  the  child?" 

"He  may  have  seen  her — I  don't  know;  but  she's 
not  so  much  to  look  at  now:  she's  gone  all  to  pieces 
1  under  this  awful  worry.  It  isn't  my  fault,  God 
knows,  but  she  expected  different  things  when  she 
married  me.  She  thought  we'd  live  somewhere  in 
the  city  and  that  she'd  have  pretty  clothes  to  wear." 

"  I  was  thinking  that  when  the  child  came  he  might 
forgive  you,"  broke  in  Maria  almost  cheerfully. 

"And  in  the  meantime  we're  to  die  like  rats.  Oh, 
there's  no  use  talking,  it's  got  to  end  one  way  or 
another.  There's  not  a  cent  in  the  house  nor  a  decent 
scrap  of  food,  and  Molly  is  having  to  see  the  doctor 
every  day.  I  declare,  it's  enough  to  drive  me  clean 
to  desperation  !" 

"And  what  good  would  that  do  Molly  or  yourself? 
Be  a  man,  Will,  and  don't  let  a  woman  hear  you 
whine.  Now  I'm  going  in  to  see  her,  and  I'll  stay 
to  help  her  about  supper." 

She  nodded  brightly,  and,  opening  the  little  door 
of  the  house,  passed  into  the  single  lower  room 
which  served  as  kitchen  and  dining-room  in  one. 
Beyond  the  disorderly  table,  from  which  the  remains 
of  dinner  had  not  yet  been  cleared  away,  Molly  was 
lying  on  a  hard  wooden  lounge  covered  with  strips 
of  faded  calico.  Her  abundant  flaxen  hair  hung  in 
lusterless  masses  upon  her  shoulders,  ^and  the  soiled 
cotton  wrapper  she  wore  was  torn  open  at  the 
throat  as  if  she  had  clutched  it  in  a  passion  of  childish 
petulance.  At  Maria's  entrance  she  started  and  looked 
up  angrily  from  her  dejected  attitude. 

"I  can't  see  any  visitors — I'm  not  fit!"  she  cried. 


WILL'S  RUIN  467 

Marie,  drew  forward  a  broken  split-bottomed  chair 
and  sat  down  beside  the  lounge. 

"I'm  not  a  visitor,  Molly,"  she  answered;  "and 
I've  come  to  see  if  I  can't  make  you  a  little  easier. 
Won't  you  let  me  fix  you  comfortably  ?  Why,  you 
poor  child,  your  hands  are  as  hot  as  fire  !" 

"I'm  hot  all  over,"  returned  Molly  peevishly; 
"and  I'm  sick — I'm  as  sick  as  I  can  be.  Will  won't 
believe  it,  but  the  doctor  says  so." 

"Will  does  believe  it,  and  it  worries  him  terribly. 
Here,  sit  up  and  let  me  bathe  your  face  and  hands  in 
cold  water.     Doesn't  that  feel  better?" 

"A  little,"  admitted  Molly,  when  Maria  had 
found  a  towel  and  dried  her  hands. 

"And  now  I'm  going  to  comb  the  tangles  out  of 
your  hair.  What  lovely  hair !  It  is  the  colour  of 
ripe  corn." 

A  pleased  flush  brightened  Molly's  face,  and  she 
resigned  herself  easily  to  Maria's  willing  services. 
"There's  a  comb  over  there  on  that  shelf  under  the 
mirror,"  she  said.  "Will  broke  half  the  teeth  out  of  it 
the  other  day,  and  it  pulls  my  hair  out  when  I  use  it." 

"Then  I'll  bring  you  one  of  mine.  You  must  be 
careful  of  these  curls.  They're  too  pretty  to  treat 
roughly.     Do  I  hurt  you?" 

As  she  spoke,  a  bright  strand  of  the  girl's  hair 
twisted  about  one  of  her  rings,  and  after  hesitating 
an  instant  she  drew  the  circle  from  her  finger  and  laid 
it  in  Molly's  lap. 

"There.  I  haven't  any  money,  so  that's  to  buy 
you  medicine  and  food,"  she  said.  "It  cost  a  good 
deal  once,  I  fancy." 

"Diamonds  !"  gasped  Molly,  with  a  cry  of  rapture. 


468  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Her  hand  closed  over  the  ring  with  a  frantic  clutch; 
then  slipping  it  on,  she  lay  watching  the  stone 
sparkle  in  the  last  sunbeams.  A  colour  had  bloomed 
suddenly  in  her  face,  and  her  eyes  shone  with  a  light 
as  brilliant  as  that  of  the  jewel  at  which  she 
gazed. 

"And  you  had — others?"  she  asked  in  a  kind  of 
sacred  awe. 

"A  great  many  once — a  necklace,  and  rings,  and 
brooches,  and  a  silly  tiara  that  made  me  look  a  fright. 
I  never  cared  for  them  after  the  novelty  of  owning 
them  wore  off.  They  are  evil  things,  it  seems  to 
me,  and  should  never  be  the  gifts  of  love,  for  each 
one  of  those  foolish  stones  stands  for  greed,  and  pride, 
and  selfishness,  and  maybe  crime.  That  was  my  way 
of  looking  at  them,  of  course,  and  whenever  I  wore 
my  necklace  I  used  to  feel  like  asking  pardon  of  every 
beggar  that  I  passed.  '  One  link  in  this  chain  might 
make  a  man  of  you,'  was  what  I  wanted  to  say — 
but  I  never  did.  Well,  they  are  almost  all  gone 
now;  some  I  sold  and  some  I  gave  away.  This 
one  will  buy  you  medicine,  I  hope,  and  then  it  will 
give  me  more  happiness  than  it  has  ever  done 
before." 

"Oh,  it  is  beautiful,  beautiful,"  sighed  Molly 
beneath  her  breath,  and  then  went  to  the  little 
cracked  mirror  in  the  corner  and  held  the  diamond 
first  to  her  ear  and  then  against  her  hair.  "They 
suit  me,"  she  said  at  last,  opening  the  bosom  of  her 
wrapper  and  trying  it  on  her  pretty  throat;  "they 
would  make  me  look  so  splendid.  Oh,  if  I'd  only  had 
a  lover  who  could  give  me  things  like  this  !" 

Maria,  watching  her,  felt  her  heart  contract  suddenly 


WILL'S  RUIN  469 

with  a  pang  of  remembrance.  Jewels  had  been  the 
one  thing  which  Jack  Wyndham  had  given  her,  for  of 
the  finer  gifts  of  the  spirit  he  had  been  beggared 
long  before  she  knew  him.  In  the  first  months  of 
his  infatuation  he  had  showered  her  with  diamonds, 
and  she  had  grown  presently  to  see  a  winking  mockery 
in  each  bauble  that  he  tossed  her.  Before  the  first 
year  was  ended  she  had  felt  her  pride  broken  by  the 
oppressiveness  of  the  jewels  that  bedecked  her  body, 
like  the  mystic  princess  who  was  killed  at  last  by 
the  material  weight  of  the  golden  crown  upon  her 
brow. 

"They  could  never  make  you  happy,  Molly.  How 
could  they?  Come  back  and  lie  down,  and  let  me 
put  the  ring  away.  Perhaps  I'd  better  take  it  to 
town  myself."  But  Molly  would  not  open  her 
closed  hand  on  which  the  diamond  shone;  and  long 
after  Maria  had  cooked  supper  and  gone  back  to  the 
Hall  the  girl  lay  motionless,  holding  the  ring  against 
the  light.  When  Will  came  in  from  milking  she 
showed  it  to  him  with  a  burst  of  joy. 

"Look  !     Oh,  look  !     Isn't  it  like  the  sun ? " 

He  eyed  it  critically. 

"By  Jove  !  It  must  have  cost  cool  hundreds  !  I'll 
take  it  to  town  to-morrow  and  bring  back  the  things 
you  need.  It  will  get  the  baby  clothes,  too,  so 
you  won't  have  to  bother  about  the  sewing." 

"You  shan't !  You  shan't !"  cried  Molly  in  a  pas- 
sion of  sobs.  "It's  mine.  She  gave  it  to  me,  and  you 
shan't  take  it  away.  I  don't  want  the  medicine:  it 
never  does  me  any  good;  and  I  can  make  the  baby 
clothes  out  of  my  old  things.  I'll  never,  never  give 
it  up!" 


470  THE  DELIVERANCE 

For  an  instant  Will  stared  at  her  as  if  she  had 
lost  her  senses. 

"Well,  she  was  a  fool  to  let  you  get  it,"  he  said, 
as  he  flung  himself  out  of  the  room. 


CHAPTER  IV 

In   Which   Mrs.    Blake's    Eyes   Are   Opened 

Before  the  beauty  of  Maria's  high  magnanimity 
Christopher  had  felt  himself  thrust  further  into  the 
abasement  of  his  self -contempt.  Had  she  met  his 
confession  with  reproach,  with  righteous  aversion, 
with  the  horror  he  had  half  expected,  it  is  possible 
that  his  heart  might  have  recoiled  into  a  last  expres- 
sion of  defiance.  But  there  had  been  none  of  these 
things.  In  his  memory  her  face  shone  moonlike 
from  its  cloud  of  dark  hair,  and  he  saw  upon  it  only 
the  look  of  a  great  and  sorrowful  passion.  His 
wretchedness  had  drawn  her  closer,  not  put  her 
further  away,  and  he  had  felt  the  quiet  of  her  toler- 
ance not  less  gratefully  than  he  had  felt  the  fervour 
of  her  love.  Her  forgiveness  had  been  of  the  grandeur 
of  her  own  nature,  and  its  height  and  breadth  had 
appealed,  even  apart  from  her  emotion,  to  a  mind 
that  was  accustomed  to  dwell  daily  on  long  reaches 
of  unbroken  space.  He  had  been  bred  on  large 
things  from  his  birth — large  horizons,  large  stretches 
of  field  and  sk}^,  large  impulses,  and  large  powers 
of  hating,  and  he  found  now  that  a  %  woman's  pres- 
ence filled  to  overflowing  the  empty  vastness  of  his 
moods. 

Reaching  the  yard,  he  saw  Tucker  sitting  placidly 
on  his  bench,  and,  crossing  the  long  grass,  he  flung 

471 


472  THE  DELIVERANCE 

himself  down  beside  him  with  a  sigh  of  pleasure  in 
the  beauty  of  the  scene. 

"You're  right,  Uncle  Tucker;  it's  all  wonderful. 
I  never  saw  such  a  sunset  in  my  life." 

"Ah,  but  you  haven't  seen  it  yet,"  said  Tucker. 
"I've  been  looking  at  it  since  it  first  caught  that  pile 
of  clouds,  and  it  grows  more  splendid  every  instant. 
I'm  not  an  overreligious  body,  I  reckon,  and  I've 
always  held  that  the  best  compliment  you  can  pay 
God  Almighty  is  to  let  Him  go  His  own  gait  and  quit 
advising  Him;  but,  I  declare,  as  I  sat  here  just  now  I 
couldn't  help  being  impertinent  enough  to  pray  that 
I  might  live  to  see  another." 

"Well,  it's  a  first-rate  one;  that's  so.  It  seems  to 
shake  a  body  out  of  the  muck,  somehow." 

"I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it  did;  and  that's  what  I 
told  two  young  fools  who  were  up  here  just  now 
asking  me  to  patch  up  their  first  married  quarrel. 
'For  heaven's  sake,  stop  playing  with  mud  and  sit 
down  and  watch  that  sunset,'  I  said  to  'em,  and  if 
you'll  believe  it,  the  girl  actually  dropped  her  jaws 
and  replied  she  had  to  hurry  back  to  shell  her  beans 
while  the  light  lasted.  Beans  !  Why,  they'll  make 
beans  enough  of  their  marriage,  and  so  I  told  'em." 

Tapping  his  crutch  gently  on  the  ground,  he 
paused  and  sat  smiling  broadly  at  the  sunset. 

For  a  time  Christopher  watched  with  him  while 
the  gold-and-crimson  glory  flamed  beyond  the  twisted 
boughs  of  the « old  pine;  then,  turning  his  troubled 
face  on  Tucker's  cheerful  one,  he  asked  deliberately: 

"Do  you  sometimes  regret  that  you  never  married, 
Uncle  Tucker?" 

" Regret ?"  repeated  Tucker  softly.     "Why,  no.     I 


MRS.  BLAKE'S  EYES  OPENED    473 

haven't  time  for  it — there's  too  much  else  to  think 
about.  Regret  is  a  dangerous  thing,  my  boy;  you 
let  a  little  one  no  bigger  than  a  mustard  seed  into 
your  heart*  and  before  you  know  it  you've  hatched 
out  a  whole  brood.  Why,  if  I  began  to  regret  that, 
heaven  knows  where  I  should  stop.  I'd  regret  my 
leg  and  arm  next,  the  pictures  I  might  have  painted, 
and  the  four  years'  war  which  we  might  have  won. 
No,  no.'  I'd  change  nothing,  I  tell  you— not  a  day; 
not  an  hour;  not  a  single  sin  nor  a  single  virtue. 
They're  all  woven  into  the  pattern  of  the  whole,  and 
I  reckon  the  Lord  knew  the  figure  He  had  in  mind." 

"Well,  I'd  like  to  pull  a  thread  or  two  out  of  it," 
returned  Christopher  moodily,  squinting  his  eyes  at 
the  approaching  form  of  Susan  Spade,  who  came 
from  the  afterglow  through  the  whitewashed  gate. 
"Why,  what's  bringing  her,  I  wonder?"  he  asked 
with  evident  displeasure. 

To    this    inquiry    Susan    herself    presently    made 
answer   as   she   walked   with    her    determined   tread  * 
across  the  little  yard. 

"I've  a  bit  of  news  for  you,  Mr.  Christopher, 
an'  I  reckon  you'd  ruther  have  it  from  my  mouth 
than  from  Bill  Fletcher's.  His  back's  up  agin,  the 
Lord  knows  why,  an'  he's  gone  an'  moved  his  pasture 
fence  so  as  to  take  in  yo'  old  field  that  lies  beside  it. 
He  swars  it's  his,  too,  but  Tom's  ready  to  match 
him  with  a  bigger  oath  that  it's  yours  an'  always 
has  been." 

"Of  course  it's  mine,"  said  Christopher  coolly. 
"The  meadow  brook  marks  the  boundary,  and  the 
field  is  on  this  side.  I  can  prove  it  by  Tom  or  Jacob 
Weatherby  to-morrow." 


474  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Well,  he's  took  it  "  rejoined  Mrs.  Spade  flatly. 

"He  won't  keep  it  long,  I  reckon,  ma'am,"  said 
Tucker,  in  his  pleasant  manner;  "and  I  must  say- 
it  seems  to  me  that  Bill  Fletcher  is  straining  at  a 
gnat.  Why,  he  has  near  two  thousand  acres,  hasn't 
he  ?  And  what  under  heaven  does  he  want  with  that 
old  field  the  sheep  have  nibbled  bare?  There's  no 
sense    in   it." 

"It  ain't  sense,  it's  natur,"  returned  Mrs.  Spade, 
sitting  squarely  down  on  the  bench  from  which 
Christopher  had  risen;  "an'  that's  what  I've  had  ag'in 
men  folks  from  the  start — thar's  too  much  natur 
in  'em.  You  kin  skeer  it  out  of  a  woman,  an'  you 
kin  beat  it  out  of  a  dog,  an'  thar're  times  when  you 
kin  even  spank  it  out  of  a  baby,  but  if  you  oust  it 
from  a  man  thar  ain't  nothin'  but  skin  an'  bones  left 
behind.  An'  natur's  a  ticklish  thing  to  handle  with- 
out gloves,  bless  yo'  soul,  suh.  It's  like  a  hive  of 
bees:  you  give  it  a  little  poke  to  start  it,  an'  the  first 
thing  you  know  it's  swarmin'  all  over  both  yo' 
hands.  It's  a  skeery  thing,  suh,  an'  Bill  Fletcher's 
got   his   share   of   it,    sho's  you're  born." 

"It  has  its  way  with  him  pretty  thoroughly,  I 
think,"  responded  Tucker,  chuckling;  "but  if  I  were 
you,  Christopher,  I'd  stick  up  for  my  rights  in  that 
old  field.  Bill  Fletcher  may  need  exercise,  but 
there's  no  reason  he  should  get  it  by  trampling 
over  you." 

"Oh,  I'll  throw  his  fence  down,  never  fear," 
answered  Christopher  indifferently.  "He  knew  it, 
I  dare  say,  when  he  put  it  up." 

"It's  a  fuss  he  wants,  suh,  an'  nothing  else," 
declared  Mrs.  Spade,  smoothing  down  the  starched 


MRS.  BLAKE'S  EYES  OPENED    475 

fold  of  her  gingham  apron;  "an'  if  he  doesn't  git 
it,  po'  creetur,  he's  goin'  to  be  laid  up  in  bed  befo' 
the  week  is  out.  He's  bilin'  hot  inside,  I  can  see 
that  in  his  face,  an'  if  the  steam  don't  work  out  one 
way  it  will  another.  When  a  man  ain't  got  a  wife 
or  child  to  nag  at  he's  mighty  sho'  to  turn  right 
round  an'  begin  naggin'  at  his  neighbours,  an'  that's 
why  it's  the  bounden  duty  of  every  decent  woman 
to  marry  an'  save  the  peace.  Why,  if  Tom  hadn't 
had  me  to  worry  on,  I  reckon  he'd  be  the  biggest 
blusterer  in  this  county  or  the  next." 

Leaving  her  still  talking,  Christopher  went  from 
her  into  the  house,  where  he  lingered  an  instant 
with  drawn  breath  before  his  mother's  door.  The 
old  lady  was  sleeping  tranquilly,  and,  treading 
softly  in  his  heavy  boots,  he  passed  out  to  the  friendly 
faces  of  the  horses  and  the  cool  dusk  of  the  stable. 

As  the  days  went  on,  drawing  gradually  toward 
summer,  Mrs.  Blake's  life  began  peacefully  to  flicker 
out,  like  a  candle  that  has  burned  into  the  socket. 
There  were  hours  when  her  mind  was  quite  clear, 
and  at  such  times  she  would  talk  unceasingly  in 
her  old  sprightly  fashion,  with  her  animated  gestures 
and  her  arch  and  fascinating  smile.  But  following 
these  sanguine  periods  there  would  come  whole  days 
when  she  lay  unconscious  and  barely  taking  breath, 
while  her  features  grew  sharp  and  wan  under  the 
pallid    skin. 

It  was  when  she  had  just  passed  through  one  of 
these  states  that  Lila  came  out  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon to  find  Christopher  at  the  woodpile,  and  told 
him,  with  a  burst  of  tears,  that  she  thought  the 
end  had  come. 


476  THE    DELIVERANCE 

"She's  quite  herself  and  wants  us  all,"  she  said, 
sobbing.  "And  she's  even  asked  for  the  house 
servants,  every  one — for  Phyllis,  and  Tobias,  and  so 
many  of  them  who  have  been  away  for  years.  It's 
just  as  if  she  knew  that  she  was  dying  and  wanted 
to  say  good-by." 

Throwing  the  axe  hurriedly  aside,  Christopher 
followed  her  into  the  house,  and  then  entering  the 
old  lady's  room,  stopped  short  beside  the  threshold 
in  a  grief  that  was  not  unmixed  with  wonder. 

The  sunshine  fell  straight  through  the  window 
on  the  high  white  pillows,  and  among  them  Mrs. 
Blake  was  sitting  rigidly,  her  blind  eyes  sparkling 
with  the  last  fitful  return  of  her  intelligence.  She 
was  speaking,  as  he  entered,  in  a  natural  and  lively 
tone,  which  brought  back  to  him  his  earliest  memories 
of   her   engaging  brightness. 

"Are  the  servants  all  there,  Cynthia?  Then  let 
them  come  and  stand  inside  the  door — a  few  at  a 
time." 

"They  are  here,  mother,"  replied  Cynthia,  choking; 
and  Christopher,  glancing  round,  saw  several  decrepit 
Negroes  leaning  against  the  wall— Uncle  Boaz,  Docia 
(pressing  her  weak  heart),  and  blear-eyed  Aunt 
Polly,    already  in  her  dotage. 

"  I  wish  to  tell  you  good-by  while  my  mind  is  clear," 
pursued  the  old  lady  in  her  high,  sweet  voice.  "You 
have  been  good  servants  to  me  for  a  long  time,  and 
I  hope  you  will  live  many  years  to  serve  my  children 

as   faithfully.     Always    remember,    Christopher 

Is  Christopher  there?" 

"I   am  here,   dear  mother." 

"Always  remember  that  a  man's  first  duty  is  to 


MRS.  BLAKE'S  EYES^  OPENED  477 

his  wife  and  children,  and  his  second  to  his  slaves. 
The  Lord  has  placed  them  in  your  hands,  and  you 
must  answer  to  Him  how  you  fulfill  the  trust.  And 
now,  Boaz — where  is  Boaz?" 

"I'm  yer,  ole  miss;  I'm  right  yer." 

"You  may  shake  my  hand,  Boaz,  for  it  is  a  long 
good-by.  I've  always  promised  you  your  freedom, 
and  I  haven't  forgotten  it,  though  you  asked  for  it 
almost  fifty  years  ago.  You  did  something  that  I 
praised  you  for — I  can't  quite  remember  what  it 
was — and  when  I  asked  you  what  you  would  like 
as  a  reward,  you  answered:  'Don't  give  me  nothin' 
now,  ole  miss,  but  let  the  gift  grow  and  set  me  free 
when  you  come  to  die.'  It  is  a  long  time,  Boaz, 
fifty  years,  but  I  give  you  your  freedom  now,  as  I 
promised,  though  it  is  very  foolish  of  you  to  want 
it,  and  I'm  sure  you'll  find  it  nothing  but  a  burden 
and  a  trouble.  Christopher,  will  you  remember  that 
Boaz  is  free?" 

Christopher  crossed  the  room,  and,  catching  her 
hands  in  his  own,  sought  to  force  her  back  upon  the 
pillows,  but  with  an  effort  that  showed  in  every 
tense  line  of  her  face  she  pushed  him  from  her  and 
sat  erect  and  unsupported. 

"Let  me  dismiss  them  first,"  she  said  with  her 
stately  manner.  "Good-by,  Phyllis  and  Polly — and 
— and — all  the  rest  of  you.  You  may  go  now.  I 
am  a  little  tired,  and  I  will  lie  down." 

Cynthia  put  the  weeping  servants  from  the  room, 
and,  filling  a  glass  with  brandy,  held  it  with  a  shaking 
hand  to  her  mother's  lips. 

"Take  this,  dear,  and  lie  down,"  she  said. 

Mrs.  Blake  sipped  the  brandy  obediently,  but  as 


478  THE  DELIVERANCE 

she  felt  her  strength  revive  from  the  strong  spirit 
the  animation  reawoke  in  her  face,  and,  turning 
toward  Christopher,  she  stretched  out  her  hand 
with    an    appealing   gesture. 

"There  is  so  much  to  say  and  I  haven't  the  space 
to  say  it  in,  my  son.  There  is  so  much  advice  I 
want  to  give  you,  but  the  time  is  short." 

"I  understand,  mother;  I  understand.  Don't  let 
it   trouble   you." 

"I  have  had  a  fortunate  life,  my  child,"  resumed 
the  old  lady,  waving  him  to  silence  with  a  gesture 
in  which  there  was  still  a  feeble  sprightliness,  "and 
when  one  has  lived  happily  far  into  the  seventies 
one  learns  a  great  deal  of  wisdom,  and  there  is  much 
good  advice  that  one  ought  to  leave  behind.  You 
have  been  an  affectionate  son  to  me,  Christopher, 
and  I  have  not  yet  given  up  the  hope  that  you  may 
live  to  be  a  worthy  husband  to  another  woman. 
If  you  do  marry — and  God  grant  that  you  may — 
remember  that  the  chief  consideration  should  be 
family  connection,  and  the  next  personal  attractive- 
ness. Wealth  counts  for  very  little  beside  good 
birth,  and  after  this  I  regard  a  small  foot  and  hand 
as  most  essential.  They  have  always  been  a  mark 
of  our  breeding,  Christopher,  and  I  should  not  like 
the  family  to  lose  through  you  one  of  its  most  dis- 
tinguished  characteristics." 

"It  is  not  likely  I  shall  marry,  mother.  I  was  cut 
out   for   different   ends." 

"One  never  knows,  my  son,  and  at  least  I  am 
only  doing  my  duty  in  speaking  to  you  thus.  I 
am  a  very  old  woman,  and  I  am  not  afraid  to  die, 
for  I   have  never  to  my  knowledge  done   anything 


MRS.  BLAKE'S  EYES  OPENED    479 

that  was  unbecoming  in  a  lady.  Remember  to  be 
a  gentleman,  and  you  will  find  that  that  embraces 
all  morality  and  a  good  deal  of  religion." 

He  kissed  her  hand,  watching  anxiously  the 
mounting    excitement    in    her    face. 

"And  if  you  do  marry,  Christopher,"  she  went  on, 
harping  fitfully  on  her  favourite  string,  "remember 
that  keeping  in  love  is  as  much  the  profession  for 
a  man  as  it  is  the  art  for  a  woman,  and  that  love 
feeds  on  little  delicacies  rather  than  on  meat  and 
drink.  Don't  forget  the  little  things,  dear,  and  the 
big  ones  will  take  care  of  themselves.  I  have  seen 
much  of  men  and  manners  in  my  life,  and  they  have 
taught  me  that  it  is  the  small  failings,  not  the  big 
faults,  which  are  deadliest  to  love.  Why,  I've  seen 
a  romantic  passion  survive  shame,  and  treachery, 
and  even  blows,  and  another  wither  out  of  existence 
before  the  first  touch  of  bad  breeding.  'A  man's 
table  manners  are  a  part  of  his  morality,'  your 
Great-grandfather   Bolivar  used   to   say." 

She  laughed  softly  while  her  hand  played  with 
the  white  fringe  on  the  counterpane. 

"I  can  recall  now  the  sympathy  I  felt  for  Matty 
Gordon,"  she  pursued,  "a  great  belle  and  beauty 
who  ran  off  and  married  that  scamp,  Aleck  Douglas. 
He  turned  into  a  perfect  rascal,  they  said,  though 
I  must  admit  that  he  made  a  very  amiable  husband, 
and  never  stinted  her,  even  if  he  stole  from  other 
people.  Well,  she  stuck  to  him  through  good  and 
evil  report,  and  was  really  from  all  appearances  a 
most  contented  woman.  When  he  died  at  last, 
people  said  that  it  was  just  in  time  to  escape  the 
penitentiary,    but    to    see    Matty    you    would    have 


48o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

thought  she  had  lost  nothing  short  of  pure  perfec- 
tion. Poor  old  Bishop  Deane,  who  always  would 
speak  his  mind,  in  the  pulpit  or  out  of  it,  went  to 
call  on  her,  he  told  me,  and  took  occasion  to  reprove 
her  for  such  excessive  grief  over  so  unworthy  an 
object.  '  He  was  not  an  upright  man,  Matty,  and 
you  know  it, '  he  began  quite  boldly;  'he  was  a  liber- 
tine, and  a  gambler,  and  an  open  scoffer  at  religion.' 
But  Matty  went  on  sobbing  harder  than  ever,  and 
at  last,  getting  angry,  he  said  sternly:  'And  more 
than  this,  ma'am,  he  was,  as  you  know,  a  faithless 
and  disloyal  husband!'  Then  the  poor  girl  drew 
out  a  pocket  handkerchief  with  a  three-inch  black 
border  and  mopped  her  pretty  blue  eyes.  'Ah, 
but,  Bishop,  I  had  so  much  to  be  thankful  for ! ' 
she  said.  'He  never  chewed  tobacco!'  Well, 
well,  she  may  have  been  a  fool,  as  the  Bishop 
insisted,  but  he  was  a  man,  in  spite  of  his  cloth, 
and  could  never  learn  to  understand  a  woman's 
sensibilities." 

She  finished,  and,  turning,  touched  him  gently  on 
the    hand. 

"It  is  the  little  things  that  count  in  marriage, 
Christopher,"  and  after  a  moment  she  added  thought- 
fully: "Promise  me  that  you  will  always  use  an 
ash-tray.  " 

"Anything,   dear  mother;    I    promise    anything." 

With  a  contented  sigh  she  closed  her  eyes,  and, 
still  holding  his  hand,  fell  into  a  broken  and  troubled 
sleep,  from  which  she  awoke  presently  in  a  gentle 
delirium.  Her  lost  youth  had  returned  to  her,  and 
with  it  something  of  her  old  gaiety  of  manner. 
Suddenly  he  felt  a  strange  thrill  pass  through  her, 


MRS.  BLAKE'S  EYES  OPENED    481 

and  raising  herself  with  a  last  great  endeavour,  she 
sat  erect,  staring  into  the  blue  sky  that  showed 
through  the  window. 

"I  am  engaged  for  this  set,  sir,"  she  said  in  her 
winning  voice,  while  a  girlish  smile  transfigured 
her  wan  face,  "but  if  it  pleases  you,  you  may  put 
your   name   down   for   the   next." 

Rising,  he  bent  quickly  over  her,  but  before  he 
touched  her  she  had  fallen  back  upon  the  pillows 
and  lay  with  her  arch  smile  frozen  upon  her  face. 


CHAPTER  V 

Christopher  Plants  by  Moonlight 

At  midnight  they  left  him  to  watch  alone  in  her 
chamber,  and  while  he  sat  in  the  shadow  beside 
the  tester  bed  his  thoughts  encircled  the  still  form 
on  the  white  counterpane.  On  the  mantel  two 
candles  burned  dimly,  and  the  melted  tallow  dripped 
slowly  down  into  the  tall  brass  candlesticks.  The 
dimity  curtains  of  the  bed  fluttered  softly  in  the 
breeze  that  blew  through  the  open  window,  and  in 
his  nostrils  there  was  the  scent.,  of  the  single  rose 
standing  in  a  glass  vase  upon  the  table.  Tucker 
had  brought  her  the  rose  that  morning  and  she  had 
held  it  for  a  pleased  moment  in  her  trembling  fingers. 
Everything  in  the  room  around  him  was  ready  for 
her  use — her  nightcap  lay  on  the  bureau,  and  in  the 
china  tray  beside  it  he  saw  her  brush  and  comb,  in 
which  a  long  strand  of  white  hair  was  still  twisted. 
On  her  hands,  folded  quietly  upon  her  breast,  he 
caught  the  flash  of  Docia's  piece  of  purple  glass, 
and  he  remembered  with  a  throb  of  pain  that  she 
had  asked  that  her  betrothal  ring  might  be  buried 
with  her. 

"Well,  she  knows  all  now,"  he  thought  in  bitter- 
ness. "She  knows  the  theft  of  the  diamond,  and 
the  deception  that  lasted  nearly  thirty  years."  In 
the  midst  of  his  sorrow  a  sudden  shame  possessed 

483 


484  THE  DELIVERANCE 

him,  and  he  felt  all  at  once  that  his  heart  was  pierced 
by  the  unearthly  keenness  of  the  dead  eyes.  "She 
knows  all  now,"  he  repeated,  and  there  was  a  pas- 
sionate defiance  in  his  acknowledgment.  "She 
knows  all  that  I  have  hidden  from  her,  as  well  as 
much  that  has  been  hidden  from  me.  Her  blind 
eyes  are  open,  and  she  sees  at  last  my  failure  and 
my  sin,  and  the  agony  that  I  have  known.  For 
years  I  have  shielded  her,  but  she  cannot  shield  me 
now,  for  all  her  wider  vision.  She  can  avert  my 
fate  no  more  than  I  could  hold  her  back  from  hers. 
We  are  each  alone — she,  and  I,  and  Maria,  and  the 
boy  whom  I  have  ruined — and  there  is  no  love  that 
can  keep  a  man  from  living  and  dying  to  himself." 

It  seemed  to  him,  sitting  there  in  the  shadow,  that 
he  felt — as  he  had  felt  before  in  grave  moments — 
the  revolutions  of  the  wheel  on  which  he  was  bound. 
And  with  that  strange  mystic  insight  which  comes 
to  those  who  lead  brooding  and  isolated  lives  close 
to  Nature,  he  asked  himself  if,  after  all,  these  things 
had  not  had  their  beginning  in  the  dawn  of  his 
existence  so  many  million  years  ago.  "Has  it  not 
all  happened  before  as  it  happens  now — my  shame 
and  my  degradation,  the  kiss  I  placed  on  Maria's 
lips,  and  the  watch  I  keep  by  the  deathbed  of  my 
mother?  It  is  all  familiar  to  me,  and  when  the  end 
comes,  that  will  be  familiar,  too." 

A  night  moth  entered,  wheeling  in  dizzy  circles 
about  the  candle,  but  when  it  went  so  near  as  to 
scorch  its  wings  he  caught  it  gently  in  his  hollowed 
palms  and  released  it  into  the  darkness  of  the  yard. 
As  he  leaned  out  he  saw  the  light  shining  clear  in 
Maria's  window,  and  while  he  gazed  upon  it  he  felt 


CHRISTOPHER  PLANTS  485 

a  curious  kinship  with  the  moth  that  had  flown  in 
from  the  night  and  hovered  about  the  flame. 

As  the  days  went  on,  the  emptiness  in  the  house 
became  to  him  like  that  of  the  grave,  and  he  learned 
presently  that  the  peevish  and  exacting  old  lady  who 
had  not  stirred  for  years  from  her  sick-bed  had  left 
a  vacancy  larger  than  all  the  rest  of  them  could  fill. 
Cynthia,  who  had  borne  most  of  the  burden,  began 
now  to  bear,  in  its  place,  the  heavier  share  of  the 
loss.  Released  from  her  daily  sacrifice  and  her 
patient  drudgery,  she  looked  about  her  with  dazed 
eyes,  like  one  whose  future  has  been  suddenly  swept 
away.  There  was  nothing  for  her  to  do  any  longer 
— no  risings  in  the  gray  dawn  to  prepare  the  day's 
stealthy  work,  no  running  on  aching  feet  to  answer 
unreasonable  complaints,  no  numberless  small  lies 
to  plan  in  secret,  no  stinting  of  herself  that  her 
mother  might  have  her  little  luxuries.  Her  work 
was  over,  and  she  pined  away  in  the  first  freedom 
of  her  life.  The  very  fact  that  deception  was  no 
longer  necessary  seemed  to  sweep  her  accustomed 
moorings  from  beneath  her  feet.  She  had  lied  so 
long  that  lying  had  become  at  last  a  second  nature  to 
her,  and  to  her  surprise  she  found  almost  an  inde- 
cency in  the  aspect  of  the  naked  truth. 

"I  don't  know  how  it  is,  Uncle  Tucker,"  she  said  one 
day  toward  the  end  of  June,  when  the  deadly  drought 
which  had  kept  back  the  transplanting  of  the  tobacco 
had  ended  in  three  days  of  heavy  rain — "  I  don't  know 
how  it  is,  but  the  thing  I  miss  most — and  I  miss  her 
every  minute — is  the  lying  I  had  to  do.  It  gave 
me  something  to  think  about,  somehow.      I  used  to 


486  THE  DELIVERANCE 

stay  awake  at  night  and  plan  all  sorts  of  pleasant 
lies  that  I  could  tell  about  the  house  and  the  garden, 
and  the  way  the  war  ended,  and  the  Presidents 
of  the  Confederacy — I  made  up  all  their  names — and 
,.  the  fuss  with  which  each  one  was  inaugurated,  and 
the  dresses  their  wives  and  daughters  wore.  It's 
all  so  dull  when  you  have  to  stop  pretending  and 
begin  to  face  things  just  as  they  are.  I've  lied  for 
almost  thirty  years,  and  I  reckon  I've  lost  my  taste 
for  the  truth." 

"Well,  it  will  come  back,  dear,"  responded  Tucker 
reassuringly;  "but  I  think  you  need  a  change  if  a 
woman  ever  did.  What  about  that  week  you're  to 
spend  with  the  Weatherbys  ? ' ' 

"I'm  going  to-morrow,"  answered  Cynthia  shortly. 
"  Lila  is  sick  with  a  cold  and  wants  me;  but  how 
you  and  Christopher  will  manage  to  get  on  is  more 
than  I  can  say." 

"Oh,  we'll  worry  along  with  Docia,  never  fear," 
replied  Tucker,  hobbling  into  his  seat  at  the  supper 
table,  as  Christopher  came  in  from  the  woods  with 
the  heavy  moisture  dripping  from  his  clothes. 

"It's  cleared  off  fine  and  there's  to  be  a  full  moon 
to-night,"  said  the  young  man,  hanging  up  his  hat. 
' '  If  the  rain  had  come  a  week  later  the  tobacco 
would  have  been  ruined.  I've  just  been  taking  it 
up  out  of  the  plant-bed." 

"You'll  begin  setting  it  out  to-morrow,  I  reckon, 
then,"  observed  Tucker,  watching  Cynthia  as  she 
cut  up  his  food. 

"Oh,  I'm  afraid  to  wait — the  ground  dries  so 
quickly.  Jacob  Weatherby  is  going  to  set  his  out 
to-night,  and   I  think   I'll  do  the  same.     There's   a 


CHRISTOPHER  PLANTS  487 

fine  moon,  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  every  farmer 
in  the  county  was  in  the  fields  till  daybreak." 

He  ate  his  supper  hurriedly,  and  then,  taking  down 
his  hat,  went  out  to  resume  his  work.  At  the  door 
he  had  left  his  big  split  basket  of  plants,  and,  slipping 
his  arm  through  the  handle,  he  crossed  the  yard  in 
the  direction  of  the  field.  As  he  turned  into  the 
little  path  which  trailed  in  wet  grass  along  the 
"worm"  fence,  Jacob  Weatherby  came  stepping 
briskly  through  the  mud  in  the  road  and  stopped 
to  ask  him  if  he  had  got  his  ground  ready  for  the 
setting  out.  "I've  been  lookin'  for  hands  myself," 
added  the  old  man  in  his  cheery  voice,  "for  I  could 
find  work  for  a  dozen  men  to-night,  but  to  save  my 
life  I  can't  scrape  up  more'n  a  nigger  here  an'  thar. 
Bill  Fletcher  has  been  out  ahead  of  me,  it  seems." 

"Well,  I'll  be  able  to  help  you  to-morrow,  I  think," 
answered  Christopher.  "I  hope  to  get  my  own 
work  done  to-night."  Then  he  asked  with  a  trifling 
hesitation:     "How  is   Lila's  cold?" 

A  sudden  light  broke  over  old  Jacob's  face,  and 
he  nodded  in  his  genial  fashion. 

"Ah,  bless  her  pretty  eyes,  I  sometimes  think  she's 
too  good  to  put  her  foot  down  on  this  here  common 
earth,"  he  said,  "an'  to  think  that  only  this  mornin' 
she  was  wantin'  to  help  Sarah  wipe  the  dishes. 
Why,  I  reckon  Sarah  would  ruther  work  her  fingers 
to  the  bone  than  have  that  gal  take  a  single  dish- 
cloth in  her  hand.  Oh,  we  know  how  to  value  her, 
Mr.  Christopher,  never  fear.  Her  word's  law  in 
our  house,  and  always  will  be." 

He  passed  on  with  his  hearty  chuckle,  and  Christo- 
pher followed  the  wet  path  and  began  planting  his 


488  THE  DELIVERANCE 

tobacco  plants  in  the  small  holes  he  bored  in  the 
moist  earth. 

It  was  the  most  solemn  hour  of  day,  when  the 
division  between  light  and  darkness  seems  less  a 
<■  gradation  than  a  sudden  blur.  A  faint  yellow  line 
still  lingered  across  the  western  horizon,  and  against  it 
the  belt  of  pines  rose  like  an  advancing  army.  The 
wind,  which  blew  toward  him  from  the  woods,  filled 
his  nostrils  with  a  spicy  tang. 

Slowly  the  moon  rose  higher,  flooding  the  hollows 
and  the  low  green  hills  with  light.  In  the  outlying 
fields  around  the  Hall  he  saw  Fletcher's  planters  at 
work  in  the  tobacco,  each  man  so  closely  followed  by 
his  shadow  that  it  was  impossible  at  a  little  distance  to 
distinguish  the  living  labourer  from  his  airy  double. 
All  the  harsh  irregularities  of  the  landscape  were 
submerged  in  a  general  softness  of  tone,  and  the 
shapes  of  hill  and  meadow,  of  road  and  tree,  of 
shrub  and  rock,  were  dissolved  in  a  magical  and 
enchanting  beauty. 

Several  hours  had  passed,  and  he  had  stopped  to 
rest  a  moment  from  his  planting,  when  Maria  came 
in  the  moonlight  along  the  road  and  paused  breath- 
lessly to  lean  upon  the  fence  beneath  the  locust  tree. 

"It  is  the  first  time  I've  been  out  for  two  weeks," 
she  said,  panting  softly.  "I  twisted  my  ankle,  and 
the  worst  part  was  that  I  didn't  even  dare  to  send 
you  word.     What  must  you  have  thought?" 

"No  harm  of  you,"  he  answered,  and  threw  down 
the  fence-rails  that  she  might  cross.  "Come  over 
to  me,  Maria." 

Putting  her  hands  in  his,  she  passed  over  the 
lowered  fence,  and  then  stood  at  arm's  length  looking 


CHRISTOPHER  PLANTS  489 

into  his  face,  which  the  moonlight  had  softened 
to  a  beauty  that  brought  to  her  mind  a  carving  in 
old  ivory. 

"I  still  limp  a  little,"  she  went  on,  smiling,  "and 
I  had  to  steal  out  like  a  thief  and  run  through  the 
shadows.  To  find  me  with  you  would  be  the  death 
of  grandfather,  I  believe.  Something  has  occurred 
to  put  him  in  a  fresh  rage  with  you." 

"It  was  the  field  by  the  pasture,"  he  told  her 
frankly.  "You  know  it  belongs  to  me,  and  pure 
justice  made  me  throw  down  his  fence;  but  if  you 
wish  it  I  will  put  it  up  again.  I'll  do  anything 
you  wish." 

She  thought  for  a  moment  with  that  complete 
detachment  of  judgment  from  emotion  which  is  so 
rarely  a  part  of  a  woman's  intellect. 

"No,  no,"  she  said;  "it  is  right  that  you  should 
take  it  down.  I  would  not  have  you  submit  to  any 
further  injustice,  not  even  a  little  one  like  that." 

"And  this  will  go  on  forever!  Oh,  Maria,  how 
will  it  end?" 

"We  must  wait  and  hope,  dear;  you  see  that." 

' '  I  see  nothing  but  that  I  love  you  and  am  most 
miserable,"  he  answered  desperately. 

A  smile  curved  her  lips.  "Oh,  blind  and  faith- 
less, I  see  only  you!" 

He  was  still  holding  her  hands,  but,  dropping 
them  as  she  spoke,  he  threw  his  arms  wide  open  and 
stood   waiting. 

"Then  come  to  me,  my  dearest;  come  to  me." 

His  voice  rang  out  in  command  rather  than  en- 
treaty, and  he  stood  smiling  gravely  as,  hesitating 
a   breathless   instant,   she   regarded    him   with    eyes 


49Q  THE  DELIVERANCE 

that  struggled  to  be  calm.  Then  slowly  the  radiance 
which  was  less  the  warmth  of  colour  than  of  expres- 
sion flooded  her  face,  and  she  bent  toward  him  as 
if  impelled  by  some  strong  outside  force.  The  next 
moment  the  storm  swept  her  roughly  from  her  feet 
and  crushed  back  her  pleading  hands  upon  her 
bosom;  bewildered,  flushed,  and  trembling,  she  lay 
upon  his  breast  while  their  lips  clung  together. 
"Oh,  my  friend,  my  lover,"  she  murmured 
faintly. 

He  felt  her  resistance  dissolve  within  his  arms, 
and  it  was  a  part  of  the  tragedy  of  their  love  that 
there  should  come  to  him  no  surprise  when 
he  found  her  mouth  salt  from  her  tears.  The 
shadow  of  a  great  evil,  of  a  secret  anguish,  still 
divided  them,  and  it  was  this  that  gave  to  their 
embraces  the  sorrowful  passion  which  he  drew  from 
her  despairing    kiss. 

"You  cannot  love  me,  Maria.  How  can  it  be 
true?" 

Releasing  herself,  she  put  her  hand  upon  his  lips 
to  silence  him. 

"You  have  made  your  confession,"  she  said 
earnestly,  with  the  serene  dignity  which  had  impressed 
him  in  the  first  moment  of  their  meeting,  "and  now 
I  will  make  mine.  You  must  not  stop  me;  you  must 
not  look  at  me  until  I  finish.       Promise." 

"I  promise  to  keep  silent,"  he  answered,  with  his 
gaze  upon  her. 

She  drew  away  from  him,  keeping  her  eyes  full  on 
his,  and  holding  him  at  arm's  length  with  the  tips 
of  her  fingers.  He  felt  that  she  was  still  shaken  by 
his  embrace — that  she  was  still  in  a  quiver  from  his 


CHRISTOPHER  PLANTS  491 

kisses;  but  to  all  outward  seeming  she  had  regained 
the  noble  composure  of  her  bearing. 

"No,  no.  Ah,  listen,  my  friend,  and  do  not  touch 
me.  What  I  must  tell  you  is  this,  and  you 
must  hear  me  patiently  to  the  end.  I  have  loved 
you  always — from  the  first  day ;  since  the  beginning. 
There  has  never  been  any  one  else,  and  there  has 
never  been  a  moment  in  my  life  when  I  would  not 
have  followed  you  had  you  lifted  a  finger — anywhere. 
At  first  I  did  not  know — I  did  not  believe  it.  It  was 
but  a  passing  fancy,  I  thought,  that  you  had  mur- 
dered. I  taught  myself  to  believe  that  I  was  cold, 
inhuman,  because  I  did  not  warm  to  other  men. 
Oh,  I  did  not  know  then  that  I  was  not  stone,  but 
ice,  which  would  melt  at  the  first  touch  of  the  true 
flame " 

"Maria ! "  he  burst  out  in  a  cry  of  anguish. 

"Hush!  Hush!  Remember  your  promise.  It  was 
not  until  afterward,"  she  went  on  in  the  same  quiet 
voice;  "it  was  not  until  my  marriage — not  until 
my  soul  shuddered  back  from  his  embraces  and  I 
dreamed  of  you,  that  I  began  to  see — to  under- 
stand." 

"Oh,  Maria,  my  beloved,  if  I  had  known  !" 

She  still  held  him  from  her  with  her  outstretched 
arm. 

' '  It  was  the  knowledge  of  this  that  made  me  feel 
that  I  had  wronged  him — that  I  had  defrauded  him 
of  the  soul  of  love  and  given  him  only  the  poor  flesh. 
It  was  this  that  held  me  to  him  all  those  wretched 
years — that  kept  me  with  him  till  the  end,  even 
through  his  madness.  At  last  I  buried  your  memory 
told  myself  that  I  had  forgotten." 


492  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"We  will  let  the  world  go,  dearest,"  he  said  pas- 
sionately.    "Come  to  me." 

But  she  shook  her  head,  and,  still  smiling,  held 
him  at  a  distance. 

"It  will  never  go,"  she  answered,  "  for  it  is  not 
the  world's  way.  But  whatever  comes  to  us,  there 
is  one  thing  you  must  remember — that  you  must 
never  forget  for  one  instant  while  you  live.  In 
good  or  evil,  in  life  or  death,  there  is  no  height  so 
high  nor  any  depth  so  low  that  I  will  not  follow 
you." 

Then  waving  him  from  her  with  a  decisive  gesture, 
she  turned  from  him  and  went  swiftly  home  across 
the  moonlit  fields. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Treats   of  the  Tragedy  Which  Wears   a  Comic 
Mask 

As  she  hastened  on,  Christopher's  presence  was 
still  with  her — his  arm  still  enveloped  her,  his  voice 
still  spoke  in  her  ears;  and  so  rapt  was  the  ecstasy 
in  which  she  moved  that  it  was  with  a  positive 
shock  that  she  found  herself  presently  before  the 
little  area  which  led  into  the  brick  kitchen  in  the 
basement  of  the  Hall.  Here  from  the  darkness  her 
name  was  spoken  in  a  stifled  voice,  while  a  hand 
reached  out  and  clutched  her  by  the  shoulder. 

"I  say,  Maria,  I've  been  waiting  hours  to  speak 
to  you." 

Forcing  back  the  cry  upon  her  lips,  she  opened 
the  door  and  stole  softly  into  the  kitchen.  Then, 
turning,  she  faced  Will  with  a  frightened  gesture. 

"How  reckless — how  very  reckless!"  she  ex- 
claimed in  a  whisper. 

He  closed  the  door  that  led  up  into  the  house, 
and  coming  over  to  the  stove,  where  the  remains  of  a 
fire  still  smouldered  in  a  deep  red  glow,  stood  looking 
at  her  with  nervous  twitches  of  his  reddened  eyelids. 
There  was  a  wildness  in  his  face  before  which  she 
fell  back  appalled,  and  his  whole  appearance,  from 
the  damp  hair  lying  in  streaks  upon  his  forehead  to 
his  restless  feet  which  he  shuffled  continually  as  he 

493 


494  THE  DELIVERANCE 

talked,  betrayed  an  agitation  so  extreme  as  to  cause 
her  a  renewed  pang  of  foreboding. 

"Oh,  Will,  you  have  been  drinking  again!"  she 
said,  in  the  same  frightened  whisper. 

"And  why  not?"  he  demanded,  throwing  out  his 
words  between  thick  breaths.  "What  business  is 
it  of  yours  or  of  anybody  else's  if  I  have  been?  A 
pretty  sister  you  are — aren't  you? — to  let  a  fellow 
rot  away  on  a  tobacco  farm  while  you  wear  diamonds 
on  your  fingers." 

She  looked  at  him  steadily  for  a  moment,  and  his 
shifting  glance  fell  slowly  to  the  floor. 

"If  you  are  in  any  fresh  trouble  you  may  as  well 
tell  me  at  once,"  she  said.  "It  is  a  mere  waste  of 
time  and  breath  to  reproach  me.  You  can't  possibly 
make  me  angry  to-night,  for  I  wear  an  armour  of 
which  you  do  not  dream,  and  so  little  a  thing  as 
abuse  does  not  even  touch  me.  Besides,  grand- 
father may  hear  us  and  come  down  at  any  moment. 
So  speak  quickly." 

Her  coolness  sobered  him  instantly,  as  if  a  splash 
of  ice-water  had  been  thrown  into  his  face,  and  his 
tone  lost  its  aggressiveness  and  sank  into  a  whimper- 
ing complaint. 

It  was  the  same  old  thing,  he  went  on,  only  worse 
and  worse.  Molly  had  been  ill  again,  and  the  doctor 
ordered  medicine  he  couldn't  buy.  Yes,  he  had 
tried  to  take  the  diamond  from  her,  but  she  flew  into 
hysterics  at  the  mere  mention  of  selling  it.  Once 
he  had  dragged  it  off  her  finger,  and  had  given  it 
back  again  because  her  wildness  frightened  him. 
"Why  on  earth  did  you  ever  let  her  have  it?"  he 
finished  querulously. ' 


TREATS  OF  THE  TRAGEDY     495 

"Well,  I  never  imagined'  she  would  be  quite  so 
silly,"  returned  Maria,  distressed  by  what  she  heard. 
"  But  it  may  be  that  jewels  are  really  her  passion,  and 
the  bravest  of  us,  I. suppose,  are  those  who  sacrifice 
most  for  their  dearest  desire.  I  really  don't  see  what 
is  to  be  done,  Will.  I  haven't  any  money,  and  I  don't 
dare  ask  grandfather,  for  he  makes  me  keep  a  strict 
account  of  every  cent  I  spend.  Only  yesterday 
he  told  me  he  couldn't  allow  me  but  two  postage 
stamps  a  week,  and  yet  I  believe  that  he  is  worth 
considerably  more  than  half  a  million  dollars.  Some- 
times I  think  it  is  nothing  short  of  pure  insanity, 
he  grows  so  miserly  about  little  things.  Aunt  Saidie 
and  I  have  both  noticed  that  he  would  rather  spend 
a  hundred  dollars — though  it  is  like  drawing  out  an 
eyetooth — than  keep  a  pound  of  fresh  butter  from 
the  market." 

"And  yet  he  likes  you?" 

"Oh,  he  tolerates  me,  as  far  as  that  goes;  but  I 
don't  believe  he  likes  anything  on  earth  except  his 
money.  It's  his  great  passion,  just  as  Molly's  love 
of  jewelry  is  hers.  There  is  something  so  tremen- 
dous about  it  that  one  can't  help  respect  it.  As 
for  me,  he  only  bears  with  my  presence  so  long  as  I 
ask  him  for  absolutely  nothing.  He  knows  I  have 
my  little  property,  and  we  had  a  dreadful  scene  when 
I  refused  to  let  him  keep  my  check-book.  I  gave 
you  all  the  interest  of  the  last  six  months,  you  know, 
and  the  other  isn't  due  until  November.  If  he  finds 
out  that  it  goes  to  you,  heaven  help  us  ! " 

"And  there's  not  the  faintest  hope  of  his  coming 
to  his  senses?     Have  you  spoken  of  me  again?" 

"I've  mentioned  your  name  twice,  that  was  all. 


496  THE  DELIVERANCE 

He  rose  and  stamped  out  of  the  room,  and  didn't 
speak  for  days.  Aunt  Saidie  and  I  have  planned  to 
bring  the  baby  over  when  it  comes.  That  may 
soften  him — especially  if  it  should  be  a  boy." 

"Oh,  the  bottom  will  drop  out  of  things  by  that 
time,"  he  returned  savagely,  tearing  pieces  of  straw 
from  his  worn  hat-brim.  "If  this  keeps  up  much 
longer,  Maria,  I  warn  you  now  I'll  run  away.  I'll 
go  off  some  day  on  a  freight  train  and  hide  my 
head  until  he  dies;  then  I'll  come  back  to  enjoy  his 
precious  money." 

She  sighed,  thinking  hopelessly  of  the  altered  will. 

"And  Molly?"  she  questioned,  for  lack  of  a  more 
effectual  argument. 

"I  can't  stop  to  think  of  Molly:  it  drives  me  mad. 
What  use  am  I  to  her,  anyway,  I'd  like  to  know? 
She'd  be  quite  as  well  off  without  me,  for  we  do 
nothing  but  quarrel  now  night  and  day;  and  yet  I 
love  her — I  love  her  awfully,"  he  added  in  a  drunken 
whimper. 

"Oh,  Will,  Will,  be  a  man  for  her  sake  ! " 

"I  can't;  I  can't,"  he  protested,  his  voice  rising 
in  anger.  "I  can't  stand  the  squalor  of  this  life; 
it's  killing  me.  Why,  look  at  the  way  I  was  brought 
up,  never  stopping  an  instant  to  ask  whether  I  could 
have  a  thing  I  wanted.  He  had  no  right  to  accustom 
me  to  luxuries  till  I  couldn't  do  without  them  and 
then  throw  me  out  upon  the  world  like  this  !" 

"Hush!  Hush!  Your  voice  is  too  loud.  It  will 
bring  him  down." 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  care  ! "  he  retorted,  but  involun- 
tarily he  lowered  his  tone. 

"You    mustn't    stay    here    five    minutes    longer," 


TREATS  OF  THE  TRAGEDY      497 

urged  Maria.  "I'll  give  you  a  diamond  brooch  I  still 
have  left,  and  you  may  take  it  to  town  yourself  and 
sell  it.  Only  promise  me  on  your  honour  that  you 
will  spend  the  money  on  the  things  Molly  needs." 

"Oh,  I  promise,"  he  replied  roughly.  "Where 
is   it?" 

"In  my  room.  I  must  get  it  now.  Be  perfectly 
quiet  until  I  return." 

Opening  the  door  and  closing  it  carefully  behind 
her,  she  stole  noiselessly  up  the  dark  staircase, 
while  Will,  twitching  nervously,  paced  restlessly 
up  and  down  the  brick  floor.  A  pile  of  walnuts 
which  Miss  Saidie  had  been  shelling  for  cake  lay  on 
the  hearth,  and,  picking  up  the  heavy  old  hammer 
she  had  used,  he  cracked  a  nut  and  ate  it  hurriedly. 
Hungry  as  he  was — for  he  had  not  been  home  to 
supper — he  found  difficulty  in  swallowing,  and,  laying 
the  hammer  down  upon  the  bricks,  he  rose  and  stood 
waiting  beside  the  stove.  Though  the  night  was 
warm,  a  shiver  ran  suddenly  through  him,  and, 
stirring  the  fading  embers  with  a  splinter  of  resinous 
pine,  he  held  out  his  shaking  hands  to  the  blaze. 

In  a  moment  Maria  entered  and  handed  him  the 
brooch  in  a  little  box. 

"Try  to  keep  up  courage,  Will,"  she  said,  pushing 
him  into  the  area  under  the  back  steps;  "and  above 
all  things,  do  not  come  here  again.     It  is  so  unsafe." 

He  promised  lightly  that  he  would  not,  and  then 
told  her  good-by  with  an  affectionate  pat  upon  the 
arm. 

"Well,  you  are  a  bully  good  chap,  after  all,"  he 
added,  as  he  stepped  out  into  the  night. 

For  a  while  Maria  stood  looking  after  him  across 


498  THE  DELIVERANCE 

the  moonlit  fields,  and  then,  even  as  she  turned  to 
enter  the  house,  the  last  troubled  hour  was  blotted 
from  her  consciousness,  and  she  lived  over  again  the 
moment  of  Christopher's  embrace.  With  that 
peculiar  power  to  revive  and  hold  within  the 
memory  an  instant's  emotion  which  is  possessed  by 
ardent  and  imaginative  women,  she  experienced 
again  all  the  throbbing  exhilaration,  all  the  fulness 
of  being,  which  had  seemed  to  crowd  the  heart-beats 
of  so  many  ordinary  years  into  the  single  minute 
that  was  packed  with  life.  That  minute  was  hers 
now  for  all  time;  it  was  a  possession  of  which  no 
material  loss,  no  untoward  fate  could  defraud  her; 
and  as  she  felt  her  steps  softly  up  the  dark  staircase, 
it  seemed  to  her  that  she  saw  her  way  by  the  light 
of  the  lamp  that  was  burning  in  her  bosom. 

To  her  surprise,  as  she  reached  the  dining-room 
a  candle  was  thrust  out  before  her,  and,  illuminated 
by  the  trembling  flame,  she  saw  the  face  of  Fletcher, 
hairy,  bloated,  sinister,  with  the  shadow  of  evil 
impulses  worked  into  the  mouth  and  eyes.  For  a 
moment  he  wagged  at  her  in  silence,  and  in  the 
flickering  radiance  she  saw  each  swollen  vein,  each 
gloomy  furrow,  with  exaggerated  distinctness.  He 
reminded  her  vaguely  of  some  hideous  gargoyle  she 
had   seen   hanging  from   an   early  Gothic  cathedral. 

"So  you've  taken  to  gallivanting,  like  the  rest," 
he  observed  with  coarse  pleasantry.  "I'd  thought 
you  were  a  staid  and  sober-minded  woman  for  your 
years,  but  it  seems  that  you  are  of  a  bunch  with 
all   the   others." 

"I've  been  out  in  the  moonlight,"  answered 
Maria,  while  a  sensation  of  sickness  stole  over  her. 


TREATS  OF  THE  TRAGEDY     499 

"It  is  as  bright  as  day,  but  I  thought  you  were  in 
bed  long  ago." 

"Thar's  not  much  sleep  for  me  during  tobacco 
planting,  I  kin  tell  you,"  rejoined  Fletcher;  "but 
as  for  you,  I  reckon  thar's  more  beneath  your  words 
than  you  like  to  own  to.  You've  been  over  to 
see  that  young  scamp,   ain't   you?" 

"  I  saw  him,  but  I  did  not  go  out  for  that  purpose." 

"It's  the  truth,  I  reckon,  for  I've  never  known 
you  to  lie,  and  I'll  be  hanged  if  it  ain't  that  I  like 
about  you,  after  all.  You're  the  only  person  I  kin 
spot,  man  or  woman,  who  speaks  the  truth  jest 
for  the   darn   love   of  it." 

"And  yet  I  lived  a  lie  for  five  years,"  returned 
Maria   quietly. 

"Maybe  so,  maybe  so;  but  it  set  on  you  like  the 
burr  on  a  chestnut,  somehow,  and  when  it  rolled 
off  thar  you  were,  as  clean  as  ever.  Well,  you're 
an  honest  and  spunky  woman,  and  I  can't  help  your 
traipsing  over  thar  even  if  I  wanted  to.  But  thar's 
one  thing  I  tell  you  now  right  flat — if  that  young 
rascal  wants  to  keep  a  whole  skin  he'd  better  stay 
off  this  place.  I'd  shoot  him  down  as  soon  as  I 
would   a   sheep-killing   hound." 

"Oh,  he  won't  come  here,"  said  Maria  faintly; 
and,  going  into  the  dining-room,  she  dropped  into 
a  chair  and  lay  with  her  arms  outstretched  upon  the 
table.  The  second  shock  to  her  emotional  ecstasy 
had  been  too  much,  and  the  furniture  and  Fletcher's 
face  and  the  glare  of  the  candle  all  spun  before  her 
in   a   sickening   confusion. 

After  looking  at  her  anxiously  an  instant,  Fletcher 
poured  out  a  glass  of  water  and  begged  her  to  take 


5oo  THE  DELIVERANCE 

a  swallow.  "Thar,  thar,  I  didn't  mean  to  skeer 
you,"  he  said  kindly.  "You  mustn't  mind  my 
rough-and-ready  ways,  for  I'm  a  plain  man,  God 
knows.  If  you  are  sure  you  feel  fainty,"  he  added, 
"I'll  git  you  a  sip  of  whisky,  but  it's  a  pity  to  waste 
it  unless  you  have   a  turn." 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,"  answered  Maria,  sitting  up, 
and  returning  his  inquiring  gaze  with  a  shake  of 
the  head.  "My  ankle  is  still  weak,  you  know,  and 
I  felt  a  sudden  twinge  from  standing  on  it.  What 
were  you  looking  for  at  this  hour?" 

"Well,  I've  been  out  in  the  air  sense  supper,  and 
I  feel  kind  of  gone.  I  thought  I'd  like  a  bite  of 
something — maybe  a  scrap  of  that  cold  jowl  we  had 
for  dinner.  But  I  can't  find  it.  Do  you  reckon 
Saidie  is  such  a  blamed  fool  as  to  throw  the  scraps 
away?" 

"There's   Malindy,    you   know;   she   must   eat." 

"I'd  like  to  see  one  nigger  eat  up  half  a  jowl," 
grumbled  Fletcher,  rooting  among  the  dishes  in  the 
sideboard.  "Thar  was  a  good  big  hunk  of  it  left, 
for  you  didn't  touch  it.  You  don't  seem  to  thrive 
on  our  victuals,"  he  added  bluntly,  turning  to  peer 
into  her  face. 

"I'm  a  small  eater;  it  makes  little  difference." 

"Well,  we  mustn't  starve  you,"  he  said,  as  he 
went  back  to  his  search;  "and  if  it's  a  matter  of  a 
pound  of  fresh  butter,  or  a  spring  chicken,  even,  I 
won't  let  it  stand  in  your  way.  Why,  what's  this, 
I   wonder?" 

Ripping  out  an  oath  with  an  angry  snort,  he 
drew  forth  Miss  Saidie 's  walnut  cake  and  held  it 
squarely  before  the  candle.     "I  declar,  if  she  ain't 


TREATS  OF  THE  TRAGEDY  501 

been  making  walnut  cake  agin,  and  I  told  her  last 
week  I  wan't  going  to  have  her  wasting  all  my  eggs. 
Look  at  it,  will  you?  If  she's  beat  up  one  egg  in 
that  cake  she's  beat  up  a  dozen,  to  say  nothing  of 
the    sugar!" 

"Don't  scold  her,  grandfather.  She  has  a  sweet 
tooth,  you  know,  and  it's  so  hard  for  her  not  to 
make  desserts." 

"Pish!  Tush!  I  don't  reckon  her  tooth's  any 
sweeter  than  mine.  I've  a  powerful  taste  for  trash 
myself,  and  always  had  since  the  time  I  overate 
ripe  honey-shucks  when  I  was  six  months  old; 
but  the  taste  don't  make  me  throw  away  good  money. 
I'll  have  no  more  of  this,  I  tell  you,  and  I've  said 
my  say.  She  can  bake  a  bit  of  cake  once  a  week 
if  she'll  stint  herself  to  an  egg  or  two,  but  when  it 
comes  to  mixing  up  a  dozen  at  a  time,  I'll  be  darned 
if   I'll   allow   it." 

Lifting  the  plate  in  one  hand,  he  stood  surveying 
the  big  cake  with  disapproving  yet  admiring  eyes. 
"It  would  serve  her  right  if  I  was  to  eat  up  every 
precious    crumb,"    he   remarked    at    last. 

"Suppose  you  try  it,"  suggested  Maria  pleasantly. 
"It    would   please    Aunt    Saidie." 

"It  ain't  to  please  her,"  sourly  responded  Fletcher, 
as  he  drove  the  knife  with  a  lunge  into  the  yellow 
loaf.  "She's  a  thriftless,  no-account  housekeeper, 
and  I'll    tell    her    so   to-morrow." 

Still  holding  the  knife  in  his  clinched  fist,  he  sat 
munching  the  cake  with  a  relish  which  brought  a 
smile   to    Maria's    tired    e}res. 

"Yes,  I've  a  powerful  sweet  tooth  myself,"  he 
added,  as  he  cut  another  slice. 


CHAPTER  VII 
Will  Faces  Desperation  and  Stands  at  Bay 

Rising  at  daybreak  next  morning,  Will's  eyes 
lighted  in  his  first  giance  trom  the  window  on  Chris- 
topher's blue-clad  figure  commanding  the  ploughed 
field  on  the  left  of  the  house.  In  the  distance 
towered  the  black  pines,  and  against  them  the  solitary 
worker  was  relieved  in  the  slanting  sunbeams  which 
seemed  to  arrest  and  hold  his  majestic  outline.  The 
split  basket  of  plants  was  on  his  arm,  and  he  was 
busily  engaged  in  "setting  out"  Will's  neglected 
crop  of  tobacco. 

Leaving  Molly  still  asleep,  Will  dressed  himself 
hurriedly,  and,  putting  the  diamond  brooch  in  his 
pocket,  ran  out  to  where  Christopher  was  standing 
midway   of   the   bare   field. 

"So  you're  doing  my  work  again,"  he  said,  not 
ungratefully. 

"  If  I  didn't  I'd  like  to  know  who  would,"  responded 
Christopher  with  rough  kindliness,  as  he  dropped 
a  wilted  plant  into  a  hole.  "You're  up  early  this 
morning.     Where  are  you  off  to?" 

Will  drew  the  brooch  from  his  pocket  and  held 
it    up    with    a   laugh. 

"Maria  gave  me  this,"  he  explained,  "and  I'm 
going  to  town  to  turn  it  into  money." 

f'Well,  I'll  keep  an  eye  on  the  place  while   you 

5°3 


504  THE  DELIVERANCE 

are  away,"  returned  Christopher,  without  looking 
at  the  trinket.  "Go  about  your  business,  and  for 
heaven's  sake  don't  stop  to  drink.  Some  men  can 
stand  liquor:  you  can't.     It  makes  a  beast  of  you." 

"And  not   of   you,   eh?" 

"It  never  gets  the  chance.  I  know  when  to  stop. 
That's  the   difference  between  us." 

"Of  course  that's  the  difference,"  rejoined  Will 
a  little  doggedly.  "  I  never  know  when  to  stop 
about  anything,  I'll  be  hanged  if  I  do.  It's  my  cursed 
luck  to  go  at  a  headlong  gait." 

"And  some  day  you'll  get  your  neck  broken. 
Well,  be  off  now,  or  you'll  most  likely  miss  the  stage." 

He  turned  away  to  sort  the  young  plants  in  his 
basket,  while  Will  started  at  a  brisk  pace  for  the 
cross-roads. 

The  planting  was  tedious  work,  and  it  was  almost 
evening  before  Christopher  reached  the  end  of  the 
field  and  started  home  along  the  little  winding  lane. 
He  had  eaten  a  scant  dinner  with  Molly,  who  had 
worried  him  by  tearful  complaints  across  the  turnip 
salad.  She  had  never  looked  prettier  than  in  her 
thin  white  blouse,  with  her  disordered  curls  shadow- 
ing her  blue  eyes,  and  he  had  never  found  her 
more  frankly  selfish.  Her  shallow-rooted  nature 
awakened  in  him  a  feeling  that  was  akin  to 
repulsion,  and  he  saw  in  imagination  the  gallant 
resolution  with  which  Maria  would  have  battled 
against  such  sordid  miseries.  At  the  first  touch 
of  her  heroic  spirit  they  would  have  been  sordid 
no  longer,  for  into  the  most  squalid  suffering 
her  golden  nature  would  have  shed  something  of 
its   sunshine.     Beauty   would   have   surrounded  her 


WILL  FACES  DESPERATION  505 

in  Will's  cabin  as  surely  as  in  Blake  Hall.  And 
with  the  thought  there  came  to  him  the  knowledge, 
wrung  from  experience,  that  there  are  souls  which 
do  not  yield  to  events,  but  bend  and  shape  them  into 
the  likeness  of  themselves.  No  favouring  circum- 
stance could  have  evolved  Maria  out  of  Molly, 
nor  could  any  crushing  one  have  formed  Molly  from 
Maria's  substance.  The  two  women  were  as  far 
asunder  as  the  poles,  united  only  by  a  certain  soft- 
ness of  sex  he  found  in  them  both. 

The  sun  had  dropped  behind  the  pines  and  a  gray 
mist  was  floating  slowly  across  the  level  landscape. 
The  fields  were  still  in  daylight,  while  dusk  already 
enshrouded  the  leafy  road,  and  it  was  from  out  the 
gloom  that  obscured  the  first  short  bend  that  he  saw 
presently  emerge  the  figure  of  a  man  who  appeared 
to  walk  unsteadily  and  with  an  effort. 

For  an  instant  Christopher  stopped  short  in  the 
lane;  then  he  went  forward  at  a  single  impetuous 
stride. 

"Will!"  he  cried  in  a  voice  of  thunder. 

Will  looked  up  with  dazed  eyes,  and,  seeing  who 
had  called  him,  burst  into  a  loud  and  boisterous 
laugh. 

"So  you'll  begin  with  your  darn  preaching,"  he 
remarked,    gaping. 

For  reply,  Christopher  reached  out,  and,  seizing 
him  by  the  shoulder,  shook  him  roughly  to  his 
senses. 

"What's  the  meaning  of  this  tomfoolery?"  he 
demanded.  "Do  you  mean  to  say  you've  made 
a   beast   of  yourself,    after   all?" 

Partly  sobered  by  the  shock,  Will  gazed  back  at 


5o6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

him  with  a  dogged  misery  which  gave  his  face  the 
colour  of  extreme  old  age. 

"I'm  not  so  drunk  as  I  look,"  he  responded  bit- 
terly. "I  wish  to  heaven  I  were!  There  are  worse 
*  things  than  being  drunk,  though  you  won't  believe 
it.  I  say,"  he  added,  in  a  sudden,  hysterical  excla- 
mation, "you're  the  only  friend  I  have  on  earth! 

"Nonsense.     What  have  you  been  doing?" 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  help  it— it  wasn't  my  fault,  I'll 
be  blamed  if  it  was  !  I  did  sell  the  breastpin  and 
get  the  money,  and  wrapped  it  in  the  list  of  things 
that  Molly  wanted.  I  put  them  in  my  pocket," 
he  finished,  touching  his  coat,  "the  money  and  the 
list   together." 

"And  where  is  it?" 

For  a  moment  Will  did  not  reply,  but  stood  shak- 
ing like  a  blade  of  grass  in  a  high  wind.  Then  remov- 
ing his  hat,  he  mopped  feebly  at  the  beads  of  sweat 
upon  his  forehead.  His  eyes  had  the  dumb  appeal 
of  a  frightened  animal's.  "I  haven't  had  a  morsel 
all  day,"  he  whimpered,  "and  the  effect  of  the 
whisky   has   all   worn   off." 

"Speak  up,  man,"  said  Christopher  kindly.  "I 
can't  eat  you." 

"Oh,  it's  not  you,"  returned  Will  desperately; 
"it's  Molly.  I'm  afraid  to  go  home  and  look  Molly 
in  the  face." 

"Pish!    She    doesn't    bite." 

"She  does  worse;  she  cries." 

"Then,  for  God's  sake,  out  with  the  trouble," 
urged  Christopher,  losing  patience.  "You've  lost 
the   money,    I   take   it;  but   how?" 

"There  was  a  fair,"  groaned  Will,  his  voice  break- 


WILL  FACES  DESPERATION  507 

ing.  "I  met  Fred  Turner  and -a  strange  man  who 
owned  horses,  and  they  asked  me  to  come  and  watch 
the  racing.  Then  we  had  drinks  and  began  to  bet, 
and  somehow  I  always  lost  after  the  first  time. 
Before  I  knew  it  the  money  was  all  gone,,  every 
single  cent,  and  I  owed  Fred  Turner  a  hundred  and 
fifty   dollars." 

Christopher's  gaze  travelled  slowly  up  and  down 
the  slight  figure  before  him  and  he  swore  softly 
beneath   his   breath. 

"Well,  you  have  made  a  mess  of  it !"  he  exclaimed 
with   a   laugh. 

"I  knew  you'd  say  so,  and  you're  the  only  friend 
I  have  on  earth.  As  for  Molly — oh,  I'm  afraid  to 
go  home,  that's  all.  Do  you  know,  I've  half  a  mind 
to   run   away   for   good  ? ' ' 

"  Pshaw  !  Accidents  will  happen,  and  there's  noth- 
ing in  all  this  to  take  the  pluck  out  of  a  man.  I've 
been  through  worse  things  myself." 

"But  Fred  Turner!"  groaned  Will.  "I  promised 
him  I'd  pay  him  in  two  days." 

"Then  you'll  do  it.     I'll  undertake  to  see  to  that." 

"You!"  exclaimed  the  other,  with  so  abject  a 
reliance  upon  the  spoken  word  that  it  brought  a 
laugh  from  Christopher's  lips.  "How  will  you 
manage   it?" 

"Oh,  somehow — mortgage  the  farm,  I  reckon.  At 
any  rate,  in  two  days  you  shall  be  clear  of  your 
debt  to  Fred  Turner;  there's  my  word.  All  I  hope 
is  that  you'll  learn  a  lesson  from  the  fright." 

"Oh,  I  will,  I  will;  and  by  Jove!  you  are  a  bully 
chap!" 

"Then  go  home  and  make  your  peace  with  Molly. 


508  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Mind  you,  if  you  get  in  liquor  again  I  warn  you  I 
won't   lift   a  hand." 

With  a  last  cheery  ' '  good  night ' '  he  swung  on 
along  the  road,  dismissing  the  thought  of  Will  to 
i.  invoke  that  of  Maria,  and  meeting  again  in  fancy 
the  rich  promise  of  her  upturned  lips.  Body  and 
soul  she  was  his  now,  flame  and  clay,  true  brain 
and  true  heart.  "I  will  follow  you,  for  the  lifting 
of  a  finger,  anywhere,"  she  had  said,  and  the  words 
reeled  madly  in  his  thoughts.  Her  impassioned 
look  returned  to  him,  and  he  closed  his  eyes  as  a  man 
does  in  the  face  of  an  emotion  which  proclaims  him 
craven. 

When  Christopher's  footsteps  had  faded  in  the 
distance,  Will,  who  had  been  looking  wistfully  after 
him,  shook  together  his  dissolving  courage  and  started 
with  a  strengthened  purpose  to  bear  the  bad  news 
to  Molly.  A  light  streamed  through  the  broken 
shutters  of  her  window,  and  when  he  laid  his  hand 
upon  the  door  it  shot  open  and  she  stood  before 
him. 

"So  you're  back  at  last,"  she  said  sharply;  "and 
late   again." 

"I  couldn't  help  it,"  he  answered  with  assumed 
indifference,  entering  and  passing  quickly  under  the 
fire   of   her   questioning  look.      "I   was   kept."' 

"What   kept   you?" 

"Oh,  business." 

"I'd  like  to  know  what  business  you  have!"  she 
retorted  querulously;  and  a  minute  later:  "Have 
you  brought   the   medicine?" 

He  went  over  to  the  table  and  stood  looking 
gloomily  down  upon  the  scattered  remains  of  supper 


WILL  FACES  DESPERATION  509 

— upon  the  sloppy  oilcloth,  the  cracked  earthen- 
ware tea-pot,  and.  the  plate  half  filled  with  sobby 
bread.  "Give  me  something  to  eat.  I'm  almost 
starved,"    he   pleaded. 

A  flash  shot  from  her  blue  eyes,  while  the  anger 
he  had  feared  worked  threateningly  in  the  features 
of  her  pretty  face.  There  was  no  temperateness 
about  Molly;  she  was  all  storm  or  sunshine,  he  had 
once  said  in  the  poetic  days  of  courtship. 

"If  you've  brought  the  things,  where  are  they?" 
she  demanded,  driving  him  squarely  into  a  corner 
from  which  there  was  no  escape  by  subterfuge. 

A  sullen  defiance  showed  in  his  aspect,  and  he 
turned  upon  her  with  a  muttered  curse.  "I  haven't 
them,  if  you  want  the  truth,"  he  snarled.  "I  meant 
to  buy  them,  but  Fred  Turner  got  me  to  drinking 
and  we  bet  on  the  races.     I  lost  the  money." 

"To  Fred  Turner!"  cried  Molly.     "Oh,  you  fool!" 

He  made  an  angry  movement  toward  her;  then 
checking  himself,  laughed  bitterly. 

"You're  as  bad  as  grandfather,"  he  said,  "and 
it's  like  jumping  from  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire. 
I'll  be  hanged  if  I  knew  you  were  a  shrew  when  I 
married    you!" 

Molly's  eyes  fairly  blazed,  and  as  she  shook  her 
head  with  an  enraged  gesture,  her  hair,  tumbling 
upon  her  shoulders,  flooded  her  with  light.  Even 
in  the  midst  of  his  fury  his  ready  senses  responded 
to  the  appeal  of  her  dishevelled  loveliness. 

"And  I'll  be — anything  if  I  knew  you  were  a 
drunkard!"  she  retorted,  pressing  her  hand  upon 
her  panting  breast. 

"Well,  you  ought  to  have  known  it,"  he  sneered, 


5io  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"for  I  was  one.  Christopher  Blake  could  have  told 
you  so.  But  if  I  remember  rightly,  you  weren't 
so  precious  particular  at  the  time.  You  were  glad 
enough  to  get  anybody,  as  it  happened!" 

"  How — how  dare  you?"  wailed  Molly,  in  the  help- 
lessness of  her  rage,  and  throwing  herself  upon  the 
lounge,  she  beat  her  hands  upon  the  wooden  sides 
and  burst  into  despairing  sobs.  "Why,  oh,  why  did 
I  marry  you?"  she  moaned  between  choking  gasps. 

"Some  said  it  was  because  Fred  Turner  threw 
you  over,"  returned  Will  savagely,  and  having 
hurled  his  last  envenomed  dart,  he  seized  his  hat 
and  rushed  out  into  the  night. 

The  scene  had  worked  like  madness  on  his  nerves, 
and  in  the  darkness  of  the  lane,  where  the  trees  kept 
out  the  moonbeams,  he  still  saw  the  flickering  lights 
that  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  room.  He  had 
eaten  nothing  all  day,  and  his  empty  stomach 
oppressed  him  with  a  sensation  of  nausea.  His 
head  spun  like  a  top,  and  as  he  walked  the  road 
rocked  in  long  seesaws  beneath  his  feet.  Yet  his 
one  craving  was  for  drink,  drink,  more  drink. 

Running  rather  than  walking,  he  reached  the  store 
at  last,  and  went  back  to  the  little  smoky  room  where 
Tom  Spade  was  drawing  beer  from  the  big  keg  in 
one  corner. 

"Give  me  something  to  eat,  Tom;  I'm  starving," 
he  said;  "and  whisky.  I  must  have  whisky  or 
I'll   die." 

"It's  my  belief  that  you'll  die  if  you  do  have  it," 
responded  Tom.  "As  for  bread  and  meat,  however, 
Susan  will  give  you  a  bite  an'  welcome."  Never- 
theless,  he  poured  out  the  whisky,  and,  leaving  it 


WILL  FACES  DESPERATION  511 

upon  one  of  the  dirty  tables,  went  hastily  out  in 
search  of   Mrs.    Spade. 

Lifting  the  glass  with  a  shaking  hand,  Will  drained 
it  at  a  single  swallow,  feeling  his  depleted  courage 
revive  as  the  raw  spirit  burned  his  throat.  A  sud- 
den heat  invaded  him ;  his  eyes  saw  clearer,  and  the 
tips  of  his  fingers  were  endowed  with  a  new  quality 
of  touch.  As  his  hands  travelled  slowly  over  his 
face  he  became  aware  that  he  was  looking  through 
his  finger  ends,  and  he  noted  distinctly  his  haggard 
features  and  the  short  growth  of  beard  which  made 
him  appear  jaded  and  unwashed.  Then  almost 
instantly  the  quickness  died  out  of  his  perception, 
and  he  felt  the  old  numbness  creeping  back. 

"Another  glass — I  must  have  another  glass," 
he  called  out  irritably  to  the  empty  room.  His 
hands  hung  stone  dead  again  at  his  sides,  and  his 
head  dropped  limply  forward  upon  his  breast.  He 
had  forgotten  his  quarrel  with  Molly:  he  had  for- 
gotten everything  except  his  own  miserable  bodily 
condition. 

When  Susan  Spade  came  in  with  a  plate  of  bread 
and  ham,  he  roused  himself  with  a  nervous  start 
and  inhaled  quickly  the  strong  odour  of  the  meat, 
endeavouring  through  the  sense  of  smell  to  reawaken 
the  pang  of  hunger  he  had  felt  earlier  in  the  evening. 
But  in  place  of  the  gnawing  emptiness  there  had 
come  now  a  deadly  nausea,  and  after  the  first  mouth- 
ful or  two  he  pushed  the  food  away  and  called 
hoarsely  for  more  whisky.  His  head  ached  in  loud, 
reverberating  throbs,  and  a  queer  fancy  possessed 
him  that  the  sound  must  be  as  audible  to  others  as  to 
himself.     With  the  thought,   he  glanced  about  sus- 


5i2  THE  DELIVERANCE 

piciously,  but  Tom  Spade  was  stopping  the  keg  that 
he  had  tapped,  and  Susan  was  wiping  off  the  table 
with  energetic  sweeps  of  her  checked  apron.  Re- 
lieved by  their  impassiveness,  he  braced  himself 
k  with  the  determination  to  drink  to  the  dead-line 
of  unconsciousness  and  then  lie  down  somewhere  in 
the  darkness  to  sleep  off  the  effects. 

"Whisky — give  me  more  whisky,"  he  repeated 
angrily. 

But  Mrs.  Spade,  true  to  her  nature,  saw  fit  to  inter- 
vene between  him  and  destruction. 

"Not  another  drop,  Mr.  Will,"  she  said  decisively. 
"Not  another  drop  shall  you  have  in  this  room  if 
it's  the  last  mortal  word  I  speak.  An'  if  you'd 
had  me  by  you  in  the  beginning,  I'm  not  afeard  to 
say,  things  would  have  helt  up  a  long  sight  sooner 
than  this." 

"Don't  you  see  I'm  in  downright  agony?"  groaned 
Will,  rapping  the  glass  upon  the  table.  "My  head 
is  splitting,  I  tell  you,  and  I  must  have  it." 

"Not  another  drop,  suh,"  replied  Mrs.  Spade  with 
adamantine  firmness  of  tone.  "I  ain't  a  weak 
woman,  thank  the  Lord,  an'  as  far  as  that  goes,  you 
might  split  to  pieces  inside  and  out  right  here  befo' 
my  eyes  an'  I  wouldn't  be  a  party  to  sendin'  you  a 
step  nearer  damnation.  I  ain't  afeard  of  seein' 
folks  suffer.     Tom  will  tell  you  that." 

"That  she  ain't,  suh,"  agreed  Tom  with  pride. 
"  If  I  do  say  it  who  shouldn't,  thar  never  was  a  woman 
who  could  stand  mo'  pain  in  other  people  than  can 
Susan.  Mo'  than  that,  Mr.  Will,  she's  right,  though 
I'd  be  sayin'  so  even  if  she  wasn't — seein'  that  the 
only  rule  for  makin'  a  woman  think  yo'  way  is  always 


WILL  FACES  DESPERATION  513 

to  think  hers.  But  she's  right,  and  that's  the  truth. 
You've  had  too  much." 

"Oh,  you're  driving  me  mad  between  you!" 
cried  Will  in  desperation.  "I'm  in  awful  trouble, 
and  there's  nothing  under  heaven  will  make  me 
forget  it  except  drink.  One  glass  more — just  one. 
That  can't  hurt  me." 

"May  he  have  one  glass,  Susan?"  asked  Tom, 
appealing  to  his  wife. 

"Not  another  drop,  suh,"  returned  Mrs.  Spade, 
immovable  as  a  rock. 

"Not  another  drop,  she  says,"  repeated  the  big 
storekeeper  in  a  sinking  voice.  Then  he  laid  his 
hand  sympathetically  on  Will's  shoulder.  "To  be 
sure,  I  know  you're  in  trouble,"  he  said,  "an'  I'll 
swear  it's  an  out-an'-out  shame,  I  don't  care  who 
hears  me.  Yes,  I'll  stand  to  it  in  the  very  face  of 
Bill  Fletcher  himself." 

"Oh,  he's  a  devil !"  cried  Will,  stung  by  the  name 
he  hated. 

"I  ain't  sayin'  you've  been  all  you  should  have 
been,"  pursued  Tom  in  his  friendly  tones,  "but  as  I 
told  Susan  yestiddy,  a  body  can't  sow  wild  oats  in 
one  generation  without  havin'  a  volunteer  crop  spring 
up  in  the  next.  Now,  yo'  wild  oats  were  sown  long 
befo'  you  were  born.     Ain't  that  so,  Susan?" 

Mrs.  Spade  planted  her  hands  squarely  upon  her 
hips  and  stood  her  ground  with  a  solidity  which 
was  as  impressive  in  its  way  as  dignity. 

"I've  spoken  my  mind  to  Bill  Fletcher,"  she 
said,  "an'  I'll  speak  it  again.  '  How's  that  boy  goin' 
to  live,  suh?  '  That's  what  I  asked,  an'  'twas  after 
he  told  me  to  shut  my  mouth,  that  it  was.       Right  or 


5i4  THE  DELIVERANCE 

wrong,  that's  what  I  told  him.  You've  gone  an' 
made  the  meanest  will  this  county  has  ever  seen." 

"What?"  cried  Will,  springing  to  his  feet,  while 
the  room  whirled  round  him. 

"Thar,  thar,  Susan,  you've  talked  too  much," 
interposed  Tom,  a  little  frightened.  "What  she 
means  is  just  some  foolishness  yo'  grandpa's  been 
lettin'  out,"  he  added;  "but  he'll  live  long  enough 
yet  to  change  his  mind  an'  his  will,  too." 

"  What  is  it  about  ?  Speak  louder,  will  you?  My 
ears  buzz  so  I  can't  hear  thunder." 

Tom  coughed  reproachfully  at  Susan. 

"Well,  he  was  talkin'  down  here  last  night  about 
havin'  changed  his  will,"  he  said  apologetically.  "He's 
tied  it  up,  it  seems,  so  you  can't  get  it,  an'  he's  gone 
an'  left  the  bulk  of  it  to  Mrs.  Wyndham." 

"To  Maria  ! "  repeated  Will,  and  saw  scarlet. 

"That's  what  he  says;  but  he'll  last  to  change  his 
mind  yet,  never  fear.  Anger  doesn't  live  as  long  as 
a  man — eh,  Susan?" 

But  Will  had  risen  and  was  walking  quite  steadily 
toward  the  door.  His  face  was  dead  white,  and  there 
were  deep  blue  circles  about  his  eyes,  which  sparkled 
brilliantly.  When  he  turned  for  a  moment  before 
going  out,  he  sucked  in  his  under  lip  with  a  hissing 
sound. 

"So  this  was  Maria's  trick  all  along,"  he  said 
hoarsely. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
How  Christopher  Comes  Into  His  Revenge 

"So  this  was  Maria's  trick  all  along,"  he  repeated, 
as  he  lurched  out  into  the  road.  "This  was  what 
she  had  schemed  for  from  the  beginning — this  was 
what  her  palavering  and  her  proxestations  meant. 
Oh,  it  had  been  a  deep  game  from  the  first,  only  he 
had  been  too  much  of  a  blind  fool  to  see  the  truth." 
A  hundred  facts  arose  to  drive  in  the  discovery;  a 
hundred  trivial  details  now  bristled  with  importance. 
Why  had  she  been  so  willing — so  eager,  even — to  give 
away  her  little  property,  unless  she  intended  to  divert 
him  with  the  crumbs  while  she  reached  for  the  whole 
loaf  ?  Why,  again,  had  she  shrunk  so  from  mentioning 
him  to  his  grandfather  ?  And  why,  still  further,  had 
she  always  fearfully  postponed  a  meeting  between 
the  two  ?  He  remembered  suddenly  that  she  had 
once  drawn  Molly  behind  the  trees  when  the  old  man 
passed  along  the  road.  Poor,  defrauded  Molly ! 
Forgetting  his  bitter  quarrel  with  her,  he  was  ready 
to  fall  upon  her  neck  in  maudlin  sympathy. 

Yes,  it  was  all  plain  now — as  clear  as  day.  He  saw 
one  by  one  each  devilish  move  that  she  had  made, 
and  he  meant  to  pay  her  back  for  all  before  the  night 
was  over.  He  would  tell  her  what  he  thought  of  her, 
freely,  fully,  in  words  that  she  would  never  forget. 
The  names  that  he  would  use,  the  curses  he  would 

515 


5i6  THE  DELIVERANCE 

utter,  spun  deliriously  in  his  head,  and  as  he  went  on 
he  found  himself  speaking  his  phrases  aloud  to  the 
darkness,  trying  upon  the  silence  the  effect  of  each 
blighting  sentence. 

The  lights  of  the  Hall  twinkled  presently  among 
the  trees,  and,  crossing  the  lawn,  he  crept  into  the 
little  area  under  the  back  steps.  If  Maria  was  not  in 
the  kitchen,  the  servant  would  be,  he  argued,  and  he 
would  send  up  a  peremptory  summons  which  would 
bring  her  down  upon  the  instant.  It  was  not  late 
enough  for  her  to  be  in  bed,  at  least,  and  he  chuckled 
over  the  thought  of  the  sleepless  night  which  she 
would  spend. 

Pushing  back  the  door  cautiously  on  its  old,  rusty 
hinges,  he  entered  on  tip-toe  and  glanced  suspiciously 
around.  The  room  was  empty,  but  a  lamp  with  a 
smoked  chimney  burned  upon  the  table,  and  there 
were  the  glimmering  embers  of  a  wood  fire  in  the 
stove.  It  was  just  as  he  had  left  it  the  evening 
before,  and  this  aroused  in  him  a  feeling  of 
surprise,  so  long  a  stretch  appeared  to  cover  the 
last  twenty-four  hours.  The  same  basket  of  chicken 
feathers  was  in  the  sagging  split-bottomed  chair, 
the  same  pile  of  black  walnuts  lay  on  the  hearth, 
and  the  rusted  hammer  was  still  lying  where  he  had 
dropped  it  upon  the  bricks.  Even  the  smell  was  the 
same — a  mixture  of  baked  bread  and  burned  feathers. 

Going  to  the  door  that  led  into  the  house,  he 
opened  it  and  looked  up  the  dark  staircase;  then  a 
sound  reached  him  from  the  dining-room,  and  with 
a  nervous  shiver  he  turned  away  and  came  back  to 
the  stove.  A  dread  paralysed  him  lest  the  meeting 
with  Maria  should  be  delayed  until  his  courage  oozed 


CHRISTOPHER'S  REVENGE  517 

out  of  him,  and  to  nerve  himself  for  the  encounter  he 
summoned  to  mind  all  the  evidence,  which  gathered 
in  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  to  prove  her  treachery. 
Once  it  occurred  to  him  that  after  a  few  minutes 
of  waiting  he  might  tighten  the  screw  upon  his 
nerves  and  so  pluck  up  the  audacity,  if  not  the  reso- 
lution, to  ascend  the  stair  boldly  and  denounce  her  in 
the  presence  of  his  grandfather.  But  the  memory 
of  Fletcher's  face  wagged  before  him,  and,  quaking 
with  terror,  he  huddled  with  open  palms  above  the 
stove.  Then,  pacing  slowly  up  and  down  the  room, 
he  set  to  work  frantically  to  lash  himself  into  the 
drunken  bravado  which  he  miscalled  courage. 

Of  a  sudden  his  hunger  assailed  him,  violent, 
convulsive,  and,  going  over  to  the  tin  safe,  he  rum- 
maged among  the  cold  scraps  he  found  there,  devour- 
ing greedily  the  food  which  had  been  set  by  for  the 
hounds.  A  bottle  of  Miss  Saidie's  raspberry  vinegar 
was  hidden  in  one  corner,  and  he  tore  the  paper  label 
from  the  cork  and  drank  like  a  man  who  perishes 
from  thirst.  His  energy,  which  had  evaporated 
from  fatigue  and  hunger,  surged  back  in  spasms  of 
anger,  and  as  he  turned  away,  invigorated,  from  the 
safe,  he  realised  as  he  had  never  done  before  the 
full  measure  of  his  rage  against  Maria.  At  the 
moment,  had  she  come  in  upon  him,  he  felt  that  he 
could  have  struck  her  in  the  face. 

But  she  did  not  come,  and  the  slow  minutes  fretted 
him  in  their  passage.  A  flame  shot  up  in  the  stove, 
and,  catching  a  knot  of  resinous  pine,  burned  steadily, 
licking  patiently  about  the  fading  embers.  The 
air  became  charged  again  with  the  odour  of  burned 
feathers,  and  he  saw  that  a  handful,  with  the  dried 


518  THE  DELIVERANCE 

blood  of  the  fowl  still  adhering  to  them,  had  been 
scattered  upon  the  ashes.  As  he  idly  noted  the  col- 
ours of  red  and  black,  he  remembered  with  bitterness 
that  he  had  raised  game-cocks  once  when  he  was  a 
boy  at  the  Hall,  and  that  Maria  had  smashed  a  nest  - 
ful  of  his  eggs  in  a  fit  of  passion.  The  incident 
swelled  to  enormous  proportions  in  his  thoughts,  and 
he  determined  that  he  would  remind  her  of  it  in  the 
interview  that  was  before  them. 

The  door  into  the  house  creaked  suddenly  behind 
him;  he  wheeled  about  nervously,  and  then  stood  with 
hanging  jaws  staring  into  the  face  of  Fletcher. 

"So  it  is  you,  is  it?"  said  the  old  man,  raising  the 
stick  he  carried.  "So  it  is  you,  as  I  suspected — 
you  darn  rascal !" 

But  the  power  of  speech  had  departed  from  Will 
in  the  presence  that  he  dreaded,  and  he  stood  clutch- 
ing tightly  to  his  harvest  hat,  and  shaking  his  head 
as  if  to  deny  the  obvious  fact  of  his  own  identity. 

"I  thought  it  was  you,"  pursued  Fletcher,  licking 
his  dry  lips.  "I  heard  a  noise,  and  I  picked  up  my 
stick,  thinking  it  was  you.  I'll  have  no  thieving 
beggars  on  my  place,  I  tell  you,  so  the  quicker  you 
git  off  the  better.  When  were  you  here  last,  I'd 
like  to  know?" 

"Yesterday,"  answered  Will,  speaking  the  truth 
from  sheer  physical  inability  to  frame  a  lie.  "  I  came 
to  see  Maria.  She's  cheated  me — she's  cheated  me 
all  along." 

"Then  she  lied,"  said  Fletcher  softly.  "Then 
she  lied  and  I  didn't  know  it." 

"She's  cheated  me,"  insisted  Will  hoarsely.  "It's 
been  all  a  scheme  of  hers  from  the  very  beginning. 


CHRISTOPHER'S  REVENGE  519 

She's  cheated  me  about  the  will,  grandpa;  I  swear 
she  has." 

"Eh?  What's  that?"  responded  the  old  man, 
shaking  back  his  heavy  eyebrows.  "Say  your  say 
right  now,  for  in  five  minutes  you  go  off  this  place 
with  every  hound  in  the  pack  yelping  at  your  heels. 
I'll  not  have  you  here — I'll  not  have  you  here  !" 

The  words  ended  in  a  snarl,  and  a  fleck  of  foam 
dropped  on  his  gray  beard. 

"But  it  was  all  Maria's  doing,"  urged  Will  pas- 
sionately. "She  has  been  against  me  from  the  first: 
I  see  that  now.  She's  plotted  to  oust  me  from  the 
very  start." 

"Well,  she  might  have  spared  herself  the  trouble," 
was  Fletcher's  sharp  rejoinder. 

"Let  me  explain — let  me  explain,"  pleaded  the 
other,  in  a  desperate  effort  to  gain  time;  "just  a  word 
or  two — I  only  want  a  word." 

But  when  his  grandfather  drew  back  and  stood 
glowering  upon  him  in  silence,  the  speech  he  had 
wished  to  utter  withered  upon  his  lips,  blighted  by 
a  panic  terror,  and  he  stood  mumbling  incoherently 
beneath  his  breath. 

"Give  me  a  word — a  word  is  all  I  want,"  he 
reiterated  wildly. 

"Then  out  with  your  damned  word  and  begone  !" 
roared  Fletcher. 

Will's  eyes  travelled  helplessly  around  the  room, 
seeking  in  vain  some  inspiration  from  the  objects 
his  gaze  encountered.  The  tin  safe,  the  basket  of 
feathers,  the  pile  of  walnuts  on  the  hearth,  each 
arrested  his  wandering  attention  for  an  instant,  and 
he   beheld   all   the   details   with   amazing   vividness. 


52o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

A  mouse  came  out  into  the  room,  gliding  like  a 
shadow  along  the  wall  to  the  pile  of  walnuts,  and  his 
eyes  followed  it  as  if  drawn  by  an  invisible  thread. 

"It's  Maria — it's  all  Maria," he  stuttered,  and  could 
"  think  of  nothing  further.  His  brain  seemed  suddenly 
paralysed,  and  he  found  himself  tugging  hopelessly 
at  the  most  commonplace  word  which  would  not  come. 
All  his  swaggering  bravado  had  scampered  off  at 
the  first  wag  of  the  old  man's  head. 

"If  that's  what  you've  got  to  say,  you  might  as 
well  begone,"  returned  Fletcher,  moving  toward 
him.  "I  warn  you  now  that  the  next  time  I  find  you 
here  you  won't  git  off  so  easy.  Maria  or  no  Maria, 
you  ain't  goin'  to  lounge  about  this  place  so  long  as 
my  name  is  Bill  Fletcher.  The  farther  you  keep 
yourself  and  your  yaller-headed  huzzy  out  of  my  sight 
the  better.     Thar,  now,  be  off  or  you'll  git  a  licking." 

"But  I  tell  you  Maria's  cheated  me — she's  cheated 
me,"  returned  Will,  his  voice  rising  shrilly  as  he  was 
goaded  into  revolt.  "She's  been  scheming  to  get 
the  place  all  along;  that's  her  trick." 

"Pish!  Tush!"  responded  Fletcher.  "Are  you 
going  or  are  you  not  ? ' ' 

Will's  eyes  burned  like  coals,  and  an  observer, 
noting  the  two  men  as  they  stood  glaring  at  each 
other,  would  have  been  struck  by  their  resemblance 
in  attitude  and  expression  rather  than  in  feature. 
Both  leaned  slightly  forward,  with  their  chins  thrust 
out  and  their  jaws  dropped,  and  there  was  a  ceaseless 
twitching  of  the  small  muscles  in  both  faces.  The 
beast  in  each  had  sprung  violently  to  the  surface 
and  recognised  the  likeness  at  which  he  snarled. 

"You've  left  me  to  starve  !"  cried  Will,  strangling 


CHRISTOPHER'S  REVENGE  521 

a  sob  of  anger.  "It's  not  fair!  You  have  no  right. 
The  money  ought  to  be  mine — I  swear  it  ought !" 

"Oh,  it  ought,  ought  it?"  sneered  the  old  man, 
with  an  ugly  laugh. 

At  the  sound  of  the  laugh,  Will  shrank  back  and 
shivered  as  if  from  the  stroke  of  a  whip.  The  spirit 
of  rage  worked  in  his  blood  like  the  spirit  of 
drink,  and  he  felt  his  disordered  nerves  respond  in 
a  sudden  frenzy. 

"It  ought  to  be  mine,  you  devil,  and  you  know 
it ! "  he  cried. 

"I  do,  do  I?"  retorted  Fletcher,  still  cackling. 
"Well,  jest  grin  at  me  a  minute  longer  like  that 
brazen  wench  your  mother  and  I  '11  lay  my  stick  across 
your  shoulders  for  good  and  all.  As  for  my  money, 
it's  mine,  I  reckon,  and,  living  or  dead,  I'll  look  to 
it  that  not  one  red  cent  gits  to  you.  Blast  you ! 
Stop  your  grinning!" 

He  raised  the  stick  and  made  a  long  swerve  side- 
ways, but  the  other,  picking  up  the  hammer  from 
the  hearth,  jerked  it  above  his  head  and  stood  braced 
for  the  assault.  In  the  silence  of  the  room  Will 
heard  the  thumping  of  his  own  heart,  and  the  sound 
inspired  him  like  the  drums  of  battle.  He  was  in 
a  quiver  from  head  to  foot,  but  it  was  a  quiver  of 
rage,  not  of  fear,  and  a  glow  of  pride  possessed  him 
that  he  could  lift  his  eyes  and  look  Fletcher  squarely 
in  the  face. 

"You're  a  devil — a  devil!  a  devil!"  he  cried 
shrilly,  sticking  out  his  tongue  like  a  pert  and 
vulgar  little  boy.  "Christopher  Blake  was  right — 
you're  a  devil !" 

As  the  name  struck    him  between  the   eyes  the 


522  THE  DELIVERANCE 

old  man  lurched  back  against  the  stove;  then  recover- 
ing himself,  he  made  a  swift  movement  forward 
and  brought  his  stick  down  with  all  his  force  on 
the  boy's  shoulder. 

"Take  that,  you  lying  varmint!"  he  shouted, 
choking. 

The  next  instant  his  weapon  had  dropped  from 
his  hand,  and  he  reached  out  blindly,  grappling  with 
the  air,  for  Will  had  turned  upon  him  with  the 
spring  of  a  wild  beast  and  sent  the  hammer  crush- 
ing  into   his   temple. 

There  was  a  muffled  thud,  and  Fletcher  went 
down  in  a  hudded  heap  upon  the  floor,  while  the 
other  stood  over  him  in  the  weakness  which  had 
succeeded  his  drunken  frenzy. 

"I  told  you  to  let  me  alone.  I  told  you  I'd  do 
it,"  said  Will  doggedly,  and  a  moment  later:  "I  told 
you  I'd  do  it." 

The  hammer  was  still  in  his  hand,  and,  lifting 
it,  he  examined  it  with  a  morbid  curiosity.  A 
red  fleck  stained  the  iron,  and  glancing  down  he 
saw  that  there  was  a  splotch  of  blood  on  Fletcher's 
temple.  "I  told  him  I'd  do  it,"  he  repeated,  speak- 
ing this   time   to   himself. 

Then  instantly  the  silence  in  the  room  stopped 
his  heart -beats  and  set  him  quaking  in  a  superstitious 
terror  through  every  fiber.  He  heard  the  stir  of  the 
mouse  in  the  pile  of  walnuts,  the  hissing  of  the 
flame  above  the  embers,  and  the  sudden  breaking 
of  the  smoked  chimney  of  the  lamp.  Then  as  he 
leaned  down  he  heard  something  else — the  steady 
ticking  of  the  big  silver  watch  in  Fletcher's 
pocket. 


CHRISTOPHER'S  REVENGE  523 

A  horror  of  great  darkness  fell  over  him,  and, 
turning,  he  reeled  like  a  drunken  man  out  into  the 
night. 


CHAPTER  IX 
The  Fulfilling  of  the  Law 

Christopher  had  helped  Tucker  upstairs  to  bed 
and  had  gone  into  his  own  room  to  undress,  when 
a  sharp  and  persistent  rattle  upon  the  closed  shut- 
ters brought  him  in  alarm  to  his  feet.  Looking  out, 
he  saw  a  man's  figure  outlined  in  the  moonlight  on 
the  walk,  and,  at  once  taking  it  to  be  Will,  he  ran 
hastily  down  and  unbarred  the  door. 

"Come  in  quietly,"  he  said.  "Uncle  Tucker  is 
asleep  upstairs.  What  in  thunder  is  the  trouble 
now?" 

Stepping  back,  he  led  the  way  into  what  so  short 
a  time  ago  had  been  Mrs.  Blake's  parlour,  and  then 
pausing  in  the  center  of  the  floor,  stood  waiting 
with  knitted  brows  for  an  explanation  of  the  visit. 
But  Will,  who  had  shrunk  dazzled  from  the  flash 
of  the  lamp,  now  lingered  to  put  up  the  bar  with 
shaking   hands. 

"For  God's  sake,  what  is  it?"  questioned  Christo- 
pher, and  a  start  shook  through  him  at  sight  of  the 
other's  face.      "Have  you  had  a  fit?" 

Closing  the  parlour  door  behind  him,  Will  crossed 
the  room  and  caught  at  the  mantel  for  support. 
"I  told  you  I'd  do  it  some  day — I  told  you  I'd  do 
it,"  he  said  incoherently,  in  a  frantic  effort  to  shift 
the  burden  of  responsibility  upon  stronger  shoulders. 

525 


526  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"You  might  have  known  all  along  that  I'd  do  it 
some  day.  " 

"Do  what?"  demanded  Christopher,  while  he  felt 
the  current  of  his  blood  grow  weak.  "Out  with 
'■  it,  now.     Speak  up.     You're  as  white  as  a  sheet." 

"He  struck  me — he  struck  me  first.  The  bruise 
is  here,"  resumed  Will,  in  the  same  eager  attempt 
at  self -justification.  "Then  I  hit  him  on  the  head 
with  a  hammer  and  his  skull  gave  way.  I  didn't 
hit  hard.  I  swear  it  was  a  little  blow;  but  he's  dead. 
I  left  him  stone  dead  in  the  kitchen.  " 

"My  God,  man!"  exclaimed  Christopher,  and 
touched  him  on  the  shoulder. 

With  a  groan,  Will  put  up  his  hands  and  covered 
his  bloodshot  eyes.  "I  didn't  mean  to  do  it — I 
swear  I  didn't,"  he  protested.  "  Who'd  have  thought 
1  his  head  would  crush  in  like  that  at  the  first  little 
blow — just  a  tap  with  an  old  hammer?  Why,  it 
would  hardly  have  cracked  a  walnut !  And  what 
was  the  hammer  doing  there,  anyway?  They  have 
no  business  to  leave  such  things  lying  about  on  the 
hearth.  It  was  all  their  fault — they  ought  to  have 
put  the  hammer  away." 

A  convulsive  shudder  ran  through  him,  ending 
in  his  hands  and  feet,  which  jerked  wildly.  His 
face  was  gray  and  old — so  old  that  he  might  have 
been  taken,  at  the  first  glance,  for  a  man  of  eighty, 
and  in  the  intervals  between  his  words  he  sucked 
in  his  breath  with  a  hissing  noise.  Meeting  Chris- 
topher's look,  he  broke  into  a  spasm  of  frightened 
sobs,  whimpering  like  a  child  that  has  been 
whipped. 

"I  told  you  not  to  drink  again,"  said  Christopher 


THE  FULFILLING  OF  THE  LAW        527 

sharply  as  he  struggled  to  collect  his  thoughts. 
"I  told  you  liquor  would  make  a  beast  of  you." 

"I'll  never  touch  another  drop.  I  swear  I'll  never 
touch  another  drop,"  groaned  Will,  still  sobbing. 
"I  didn't  mean  to  kill  him,  I  tell  you.  It  wasn't  as 
if  I  really  meant  to  kill  him;  you  see  that.  It  was 
all  the  fault  of  that  accursed  hammer  they  left  lying 
on  the  hearth.  A  man  must  have  a  lot  of  courage 
to  murder  anybody;  mustn't  he?"  he  added,  with 
a  feeble  smile;  "and  I'm  a  coward — you  know  I've 
always  been  a  coward;  haven't  I — haven't  I?"  he 
persisted,  and  Christopher  nodded  an  agreement. 

"You  see,  I  wasn't  to  blame,  after  all;  but  he  flew 
into  such  a  rage — he  always  flew  into  a  rage  when 
he  heard  your  name." 

"So  you  brought  my  name  in?"  asked  Christopher 
carelessly. 

"Oh,  it  was  that  that  did  it;  it  was  your  name," 
replied  Will  breathlessly.  "I  told  him  you  said  he 
was  a  devil — you  did  say  so,  you  know.  'Chris- 
topher Blake  was  right;  he  called  you  a  devil,'  that 
was  it.     Then  he  ran  at  me  with  his  stick,  and  I 

jerked  up  the  hammer,  and Oh,  my  God,  they 

mustn't  hang  me!" 

"Nonsense!"  retorted  Christopher  roughly,  for 
the  other  had  dropped  upon  the  floor  and  was  grovel- 
ling in  drunken  hysterics  at  his  feet.  "It  makes 
me  sick  to  see  a  man  act  like  an  ass." 

"Get  me  out  of  this  and  I'll  never  touch  a  drop," 
moaned  Will.  "Take  me  away  from  here — hide  me 
anywhere.  I'll  go  anywhere,  I'll  promise  anything, 
only  they  mustn't  find  me.  If  they  find  me  I'll  go 
mad — I'll  go  mad  in  gaol." 


528  THE  DELIVERANCE 

"Shut  up!"  rejoined  Christopher,  listening  with 
irritation  to  the  sound  of  the  other's  hissing  breath. 
"Stop  your  infernal  racket  a  minute  and  let  me 
think.  Here,  get  up.  Are  you  too  drunk  to  stand 
on   your  feet  ? ' ' 

"I'm  sober — I'm  perfectly  sober,"  protested  Will, 
and,  rising  obediently,  he  stood  clutching  at  the 
chimney-piece.  "Get  me  out  of  this — only  get  me 
out  of  this,"  he  repeated,  with  a  desperate  reliance 
on  the  other's  power  to  avert  the  consequences  of 
his  deed.  "I've  always  been  a  good  friend  to  you," 
he  went  on  passionately.  "The  quarrel  first  started 
about  you,  and  I  stood  up  for  you  to  the  last.  I 
never  let  him  say  anything  against  you — I  never 
did!" 

"I'm  much  obliged  to  you,"  returned  Christopher, 
and  felt  that  he  might  as  well  have  wasted  his  irony 
on  a  beaten  hound.  Turning  away  from  the  wild 
entreaty  of  Will's  eyes,  he  walked  slowly  up  and 
down  the  room,  taking  care  to  step  lightly  lest  the 
boards   should   creak   and   awaken   Tucker. 

The  parlour  was  just  as  Mrs.  Blake  had  left  it: 
her  high-backed  Elizabethan  chair,  filled  with  cush- 
ions, stood  on  the  hearth;  the  dried  grasses  in 
the  two  tall  vases  shed  their  ashy  pollen  down 
upon  the  bricks.  Even  the  yellow  cat,  grown  old 
and  sluggish,  dozed  in  her  favourite  spot  beside  the 
embroidered   ottoman. 

On  the  whitewashed  walls  the  old  Blake  portraits 
still  presided,  and  he  found,  for  the  first  time,  an 
artless  humour  in  the  formality  of  the  ancestral  atti- 
tude— in  the  splendid  pose  which  they  had  handed 
down  like  an  heirloom  through  the  centuries.     Among 


THE  FULFILLING  OF  THE  LAW        529 

them  he  saw  the  comely,  high-coloured  features  of 
that  gallant  cynic,  Bolivar,  the  man  who  had  stamped 
his  beauty  upon  three  generations,  and  his  gaze 
lingered  with  a  gentle  ridicule  on  the  blithe  candour 
in  the  eyes  and  the  characteristic  touch  of  brutality 
about  the  mouth.  Then  he  passed  to  his  father, 
portly,  impressive,  a  high  liver,  a  generous  young 
blood,  and  then  to  the  classic  Saint-Memin  profile 
of  Aunt  Susannah,  limned  delicately  against  a 
background  of  faded  pink.  And  from  her  he  went 
on  to  his  mother's  portrait,  painted  in  shimmering 
brocade  under  rose-garlands  held  by  smiling  Loves. 

He  looked  at  them  all  steadily  for  a  while,  seeking 
from  the  changeless  lips  of  each  an  answer  to  the 
question  which  he  felt  knocking  at  his  own  heart. 
In  every  limb,  in  every  feature,  in  every  fiber  he 
was  plainly  born  to  be  one  of  themselves,  and  yet 
from  their  elegant  remoteness  they  stared  down 
upon  the  rustic  labourer  who  was  their  descendant. 
Degraded,  coarsened,  disinherited,  the  last  Blake 
stood  before  them,  with  his  poverty  and  ignorance 
illumined  only  at  long  intervals  by  the  flame  of  a 
soul  which,  though  darkened,  was  still  unquenched. 

The  night  dragged  slowly  on,  while  he  paced  the 
floor  with  his  thoughts  and  Will  moaned  and  tossed, 
a  shivering  heap,   upon  the   sofa. 

"Stop  your  everlasting  cackle!"  Christopher  had 
once  shouted  angrily,  forgetting  Tucker,  and  for  the 
space  of  a  few  minutes  the  other  had  lain  silent, 
choking  back  the  strangling  sobs.  But  presently 
the  shattered  nerves  revolted  against  restraint,  and 
Will  burst  out  afresh  into  wild  crying.  The  yellow 
cat,  grown  suddenly  restless,  crossed  the  room  and 


53o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

jumped  upon  the  sofa,  where  she  stood  clawing  at 
the  cover,  and  he  clung  to  her  with  a  pathetic  recog- 
nition of  dumb  sympathy — the  sympathy  which  he 
could  not  wring  from  the  careless  indifference  of 
Christopher's  look. 

"Speak  to  me — say  something,"  he  pleaded  at 
last,  stretching  out  his  hands.  "If  this  keeps  up 
I'll  go  mad  before  morning." 

At  this  Christopher  came  toward  him,  and,  stop- 
ping in  his  walk,   frowned  down  upon  the  sofa. 

"You  deserve  everything  you'd  get,"  he  said 
angrily.  "You're  as  big  a  fool  as  ever  trod  this 
earth,  and  there's  no  reason  under  heaven  why  I 
should  lift  my  hand  to  help  you.  There's  no  reason 
— -there's  no  reason,"  he  repeated  in  furious  tones. 

"But  you'll  do  it — you'll  get  me  out  of  it!"  cried 
Will,  grasping  the  other's  knees. 

"And  two  weeks  later  you'd  be  in  another  scrape." 

"Not  a  single  drop — I'll  never  touch  a  drop  again. 
Before  God  I  swear  it!" 

"Pshaw!     I've  heard  that  oath  before." 

Strangling  a  scream,  Will  caught  him  by  the  arm, 
dragging  himself  slowly  into  a  sitting  posture.  "I'll 
hang  myself  if  you  let  them  get  me,"  he  urged  hys- 
terically. "I'll  hang  myself  in  gaol  rather  than  let 
them  do  it.  I  can't  face  it  all — I  can't — I  can't. 
It  isn't  grandpa  I  mind;  I'm  not  afraid  of  him. 
He  was  a  devil.      But  it's  the  rest — the  rest.  " 

Roughly  shaking  him  off,  Christopher  left  him 
huddled  upon  the  floor  and  resumed  his  steady 
walk  up  and  down  the  room.  In  his  ears  the  inco- 
herent phrases  grew  presently  fainter,  and  after  a 
time  he  lost  entirely  their  frenzied  drift.     "A  little 


THE  FULFILLING  OF  THE  LAW        531 

blow — just  a  little  blow,"  ended  finally  in  muffled 
sounds  of  weeping. 

The  habit  of  outward  composure  which  always 
came  to  him  in  moments  of  swift  experience  pos- 
sessed him  so  perfectly  now  that  Will,  lifting  miser- 
able eyes  to  his  face,  lowered  them,  appalled  by  its 
unfeeling  gravity. 

"I've  been  a  good  friend  to  you — a  deuced  good 
friend  to  you,"  urged  the  younger  man  in  a  last 
passionate  appeal  for  the  aid  whose  direction  he 
had  not   yet   defined. 

' '  What  is  this  thought  which  I  cannot  get  rid  of  ? " 
asked  Christopher  moodily  of  himself.  "And  what 
business  is  it  of  mine,  anyway?  What  am  I  to  the 
boy  or  the  boy  to  me?"  But  even  with  the  words 
he  remembered  the  morning  more  than  five  years  ago 
when  he  had  gone  out  to  the  gate  with  his  bird  gun 
on  his  shoulder  and  found  Will  Fletcher  and  the 
spotted  foxhound  puppies  awaiting  him  in  the  road. 
He  saw  again  the  boy's  face,  with  the  sunlight  full 
upon  it — eager,  alert,  a  little  petulant,  full  of  good 
impulses  readily  turned  adrift.  There  had  been 
no  evil  upon  it  then — only  weakness  and  a  pathetic 
absence  of  determination.  His  own  damnable  inten- 
tion was  thrust  back  upon  him,  and  he  heard  again 
the  words  of  Carraway  which  had  reechoed  in  his 
thoughts.  "The  way  to  touch  the  man,  then,  is 
through  the  boy."  So  it  was  the  way,  after  all! 
He  almost  laughed  aloud  at  his  prophetic  insight. 
He  had  touched  the  man  vitally  enough  at  last,  and 
it  was  through  the  boy.  He  had  murdered  Bill 
Fletcher,  and  he  had  done  it  through  the  only  thing 
Bill  Fletcher  had  ever  loved.     From  this  he  returned 


532  THE  DELIVERANCE 

again  to  the  memory  of  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
that  day — to  the  ribald  jests,  the  coarse  profanities, 
the  brutal  oaths.  Then  to  the  night  when  he  had 
forced  the  first  drink  down  Will's  throat,  and  so 
on  through  the  five  years  of  his  revenge  to  the  pres- 
ent moment.  Well,  his  triumph  had  come  at  last, 
the  summit  was  put  upon  his  life's  work,  and  he 
was — he  must  be — content. 

Will  raised  his  head  and  looked  at  him  in  reviving 
hope. 

"You're  the  only  friend  I  have  on  earth,"  he 
muttered  between   his  teeth. 

The  first  streak  of  dawn  entered  suddenly,  flood- 
ing the  room  with  a  thin  gray  light  in  which  the 
familiar  objects  appeared  robbed  of  all  atmospheric 
values.  With  a  last  feeble  flicker  the  lamp  shot 
up  and  went  out,  and  the  ashen  wash  of  daybreak 
seemed  the  fit  medium  for  the  crude  ugliness  of  life. 

Towering  almost  grotesquely  in  the  pallid  dawn, 
Christopher  came  and  leaned  above  the  sofa  to  which 
Will    had   dragged   himself    again. 

"You  must  get  out  of  this,"  he  said,  "and  quickly, 
for  we've  wasted  the  whole  night  wrangling.  Have 
you  any  money?" 

Will  fumbled  in  his  pocket  and  brought  out  a  few 
cents,  which  he  held  in  his  open  palm,  while  the 
other  unlocked  the  drawer  of  the  old  secretary  and 
handed  him  a  roll  of  banknotes. 

"Take  this  and  buy  a  ticket  somewhere.  It's 
the  money  I  scraped  up  to  pay  Fred  Turner." 

"To  pay  Fred  Turner?"  echoed  Will,  as  if  in 
that  lay  the  significance  of  the  remark. 

"Take  it  and  buy  a  ticket,  and  when  you  get  where 


THE  FULFILLING  OF  THE  LAW        533 

you're  going,  sit  still  and  keep  your  mouth  shut.  If 
you  wear  a  bold  face  you  will  go  scot-free;  remember 
that;  but  everything  depends  upon  your  keeping  a 
stiff  front.  And  now  go — through  the  back  door 
and  past  the  kitchen  to  the  piece  of  woods  beyond 
the  pasture.  Cut  through  them  to  Tanner's  Station 
and  take  the  train  there,  mind,  for  the  North." 

With  a  short  laugh  he  held  out  his  big,  knotted 
hand. 

"  Good-by,"  he  said,  "and  don't  be  a  damned  fool." 

"Good-by,"  answered  Will,  clinging  desperately  to 
his  outstretched  arm.  Then  an  ashen  pallor  over- 
spread his  face,  and  he  slunk  nervously  toward  the 
kitchen,  for  there  was  the  sound  of  footsteps  on  the 
little  porch  outside,  followed  by  a  brisk  rap  on  the 
front   door. 

"Go!"  whispered  Christopher,  hardly  taking 
breath,  and  he  stood  waiting  while  Will  ran  along 
the  wooden  platform  and  past  the  stable  toward 
the  pasture. 

The  rap  came  again,  and  he  turned  quickly.  ' '  Quit 
your  racket  and  let  me  get  on  my  clothes!"  he 
shouted,  and  hesitated  a  little  longer. 

As  he  stood  alone  there  in  the  center  of  the  room, 
his  eyes,  traversing  the  walls,  fell  on  the  portrait  of 
Bolivar  Blake,  and  with  one  of  the  fantastic  tricks 
of  memory  there  shot  into  his  head  the  dying  phrase 
of  that  gay  sinner:  "I  may  not  sit  with  the  saints, 
but  I  shall  stand  among  the  gentlemen." 

"Precious  old  ass!"  he  muttered,  and  unbarred 
the  door. 

As  he  flung  it  open  the  first  rays  of  sunlight  splashed 
across  the  threshold,   and  he  was  conscious,   all  at 


534  THE  DELIVERANCE 

once,  of  a  strange  exhilaration,  as  if  he  were  breast- 
ing one  of  the  big  waves  of  life. 

' '  This  is  a  pretty  way  to  wake  up  a  fellow  who  has 
been  planting  tobacco  till  he's  stiff,"  he  grumbled. 
"Is  that  you,  Tom?"  He  glanced  carelessly  round, 
nodding  with  a  kind  of  friendly  condescension  to 
each  man  of  the  little  group.  "How  are  you,  Mat- 
thew?    Hello,    Fred!" 

Tom  drew  back,  coughing,  and  scraped  the  heel 
of  his  boot  on  the  topmost  step. 

"We  didn't  mean  to  git  you  out  of  bed,  Mr. 
Christopher,"  he  explained  apologetically,  "but  the 
truth  is  we  want  Will  Fletcher  an'  he  ain't  at  home. 
The  old  man's  murdered,  suh." 

"Murdered,  is  he?"  exclaimed  Christopher,  with 
a  long  whistle,  "and  you  want  Will  Fletcher — which 
shows  what  a  very  pretty  sheriff  you  would  make. 
Well,  if  you're  so  strong  on  his  scent  that  you  can't 
turn  aside,  most  likely  you'll  find  him  sleeping  off 
his  drunk  under  my  haystack.  But  if  you're  look- 
ing for  the  man  who  killed  Bill  Fletcher,  then  that's 
a  different  matter,"  he  added,  taking  down  his  hat, 
"and  I  reckon,  boys,  I'm  about  ready  to  come  along." 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Wheel  of  Life 

Throughout  the  trial  he  wore  the  sullen  reserve 
which  closed  over  him  like  a  visor  when  he 
approached  one  of  the  crises  of  life.  He  had  made 
his  confession  and  he  stood  to  it.  "I  killed  Bill 
Fletcher"  he  gave  out  flatly  enough.  What  he  could 
not  give  was  an  explanation  of  his  unaccountable 
presence  at  the  Hall  so  nearly  upon  midnight. 
When  the  question  was  first  put  to  him  he  sneered 
and  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  the  hereditary 
gesture  of  the  Blakes.  "Why  was  he  there? 
Well,  why  wasn't  he  there?"  That  was  all.  And 
Carraway,  who  had  stood  by  his  side  since  the  day 
of  the  arrest,  retired  at  last  before  an  attitude 
which  he  characterised  as  one  of  defiant  arrogance. 

It  was  this  attitu'de,  people  said  presently,  rather 
than  the  murder  of  Bill  Fletcher,  which  brought  him 
the  sentence  he  heard  with  so  insolent  an  indifference. 

"  Five  years  wasn't  much  for  killin'  a  man,  maybe," 
Tom  Spade  observed,  "but  it  was  a  good  deal, 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  for  a  Blake  to  pay  jest 
for  gettin'  even  with  a  Fletcher.  Why,  he  might 
have  brained  Bill  Fletcher  an'  welcome,"  the  store- 
keeper added  a  little  wistfully,  "if  only  he  hadn't 
put  on  such  a  nasty  manner  afterward." 

But  it  was  behind  this  impregnable  reserve  that 

535 


536  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Christopher  retreated  as  into  a  walled  fortress. 
There  had  been  no  sentiment  in  his  act,  he  told 
himself ;  he  had  not  even  felt  the  romantic  fervour  of 
the  sacrifice.  A  certain  staunch  justice  was  all  he  saw 
in  it,  relieved  doubtless  by  a  share  of  his  hereditary 
love  of  desperate  hopes — of  the  hot-headed  clinging 
to  that  last  shifting  foothold  on  which  a  man  might 
still  make  his  fight  against  the  power  of  circum- 
stance. And  so,  with  that  strange  mixture  of  rustic 
crudeness  and  aristocratic  arrogance,  he  turned  his 
face  from  his  friends  and  went  stubbornly  through 
the   cross-questioning  of  the   court. 

From  first  to  last  he  had  not  wavered  in  his  refusal 
to  see  Maria,  and  there  had  been  an  angry  vehemence 
in  the  resistance  he  had  made  to  her  passionate 
entreaty  for  a  meeting.  When  by  the  early  autumn 
he  went  from  the  little  town  gaol  to  serve  his  five 
years  in  the  State  prison,  his  most  vivid  memory  of 
her  was  as  she  looked  with  the  moonlight  on  her  face 
in  the  open  field.  As  the  months  went  on,  this 
gradually  grew  remote  and  dim  in  his  remembrance, 
like  a  bright  star  over  which  the  clouds  thicken,  and 
his  thoughts  declined,  almost  without  an  upward 
inspiration,  upon  the  brutal  level  of  his  daily  life. 
Mere  physical  disgust  was  his  first  violent  recoil  from 
what  had  seemed  a  curious  deadness  of  his  whole 
nature,  and  the  awakening  of  the  senses  preceded  by 
many  months  the  final  resurrection  of  the  more 
spiritual  emotions.  The  sources  of  health  were  still 
abundant  in  him,  he  admitted,  if  the  vile  air,  the 
fetid  smells,  the  closeness  as  of  huddled  animals,  the 
filth,  the  obscenity,  the  insufferable  bestial  humanity 
could    arouse   in    him   a  bodily    nausea    so    nearly 


THE  WHEEL  OF  LIFE  537 

resembling  disease.  There  were  moments  when  he 
felt  capable  of  any  crime  from  sheer  frenzied  loathing 
of  his  surroundings — when  for  the  sake  of  the  clean 
space  of  the  tobacco  fields  and  the  pure  water  of  the 
little  spring  he  would  have  murdered  Bill  Fletcher  a 
dozen  times.  As  for  the  old  man's  death  in  itself,  it 
had  never  caused  him  so  much  as  a  quiver  of  the  con- 
science. Bill  Fletcher  deserved  to  die,  and  the  world 
was  well  rid  of  him — that  was  all. 

But  his  own  misery !  This  was  with  him  always, 
and  there  was  no  escape  from  the  moral  wretchedness 
which  seemed  to  follow  so  closely  upon  crime.  Fresh 
from  the  open  country  and  the  keen  winds  that 
blow  over  level  spaces,  he  seemed  mentally  and 
physically  to  wither  in  the  change  of  air — to  shrink 
slowly  to  the  perishing  root,  like  a  plant  that  has  been 
brought  from  a  rich  meadow  to  the  aridity  of  the 
close-packed  city.  And  with  the  growing  of  this 
strange  form  of  homesickness  he  would  be  driven, 
at  times,  into  an  almost  delirious  cruelty  toward 
those  who  were  weaker  than  himself,  for  there  were 
summer  nights  when  he  would  brutally  knock  smaller 
men  from  the  single  window  of  the  cell  and  cling, 
panting  for  breath,  to  the  iron  bars.  As  the  year 
went  on,  his  grim  silence,  too,  became  for  those 
around  him  as  the  inevitable  shadow  of  the  prison, 
and  he  went  about  his  daily  work  in  a  churlish  lone- 
liness which  caused  even  the  convicts  among  whom 
he  lived  to  shrink  back  from  his  presence. 

Then  with  the  closing  of  the  second  winter  his 
superb  physical  strength  snapped  suddenly  like  a  cord 
that  has  stood  too  tight  a  strain,  and  for  weeks  he 
lingered  between  life  and  death    in    the    hospital, 


538  THE  DELIVERANCE 

into  which  he  was  carried  while  yet  unconscious. 
With  his  returning  health,  when  the  abatement  of 
the  fever  left  him  strangely  shaken  and  the  unearthly 
pallor  still  clung  to  his  face  and  hands,  he  awoke  for 
*  the  first  time  to  a  knowledge  that  his  illness  had 
altered — for  the  period  of  his  convalescence,  at  least 
— the  vision  through  which  he  had  grown  to  regard 
the  world. 

A  change  had  come  to  him,  in  that  mysterious 
borderland  so  near  the  grave,  and  the  bare  places  in 
his  soul  had  burst  suddenly  into  fulfilment.  Sitting 
one  Sunday  morning  in  the  open  court  of  the  prison, 
with  his  thin  white  hands  hanging  between  his  knees 
and  his  head,  cropped  now  of  its  thick,  fair  hair,  raised 
to  the  sunshine,  it  seemed  to  him  that,  like  Tucker 
on  the  old  bench,  he  had  learned  at  last  how  to  be 
happy.  The  warm  sun  in  his  face,  the  blue  sky 
straight  overhead,  the  spouting  fountain  from  which 
a  sparrow  drank,  produced  in  him  a  recognition, 
wholly  passionless,  of  the  abundant  physical  beauty 
of  the  earth — of  a  beauty  in  the  blue  sky  and  in  the 
clear  sunshine  falling  upon  the  prison  court. 

A  month  ago  he  had  wondered  almost  hopefully  if 
his  was  to  be  one  of  those  pathetic  sunken  graves, 
marked  for  so  brief  a  time  by  wooden  headboards — 
the  graves  of  the  men  who  had  died  within  the  walls 
— and  now  there  pulsed  through  him,  sitting  there 
alone ,  a  quiet  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  he  might 
still  breathe  the  air  and  look  into  men's  faces  and 
see  the  blue  sky  overhead.  The  sky  in  itself  !  That 
was  enough  to  fill  one's  memory  to  overflowing, 
Tucker  had  said. 

A    tall,   lean    convict,    newly    released    from    the 


THE  WHEEL  OF  LIFE  539 

hospital,  crossed  the  court  at  a  stumbling  pace  and 
stood  for  a  moment  at  his  side. 

"I  reckon  you're  hankerin',  "  he  remarked.  "I 
was  sent  down  here  from  the  mountains,  an'  I  hanker 
terrible  for  the  sight  of  the  old  Humpback  Knob." 

"And  I'd  like  to  see  a  level  sweep — hardly  a  hill, 
just  a  clean  stretch  for  the  wind  to  blow  over  the 
tobacco." 

"You're  from  the  tobaccy  belt,  then,  ain't  you? 
What  are  you  here  for  ? ' ' 

"Killing  a  man.     And  you?" 

"Killin'  two." 

He  limped  off  at  his  feeble  step,  and  Christopher 
rubbed  his  hands  in  the  warm  sunshine  and  wondered 
how  it  would  feel  to  bask  on  one  of  the  old  logs  by 
the  roadside. 

That  afternoon  Jim  Weatherby  came  to  see  him, 
bringing  the  news  that  Lila's  baby  had  come  and 
that  she  had  named  it  Christopher.  "It's  the  living 
image,  of  you,  she  says,"  he  added,  smiling;  "but 
I  confess  I  can't  quite  see  it.  The  funny  part  is, 
you  know,  that  Cynthia  is  just  as  crazy  about  it  as 
Lila  is,  and  she  looks  ten  years  younger  since  the 
little  chap  came." 

"And  Uncle  Tucker?" 

"His  old  wounds  trouble  him,  but  he  sent 
you  word  he  was  waiting  to  go  till  you  came  back 
again." 

A  blur  swam  before  Christopher's  eyes,  and  he  saw 
in  fancy  the  old  soldier  waiting  for  him  on  the  bench 
beside  the  damask  rose-bush. 

"And  the  others — and  Maria  Wyndham?"  he 
asked,  swallowing  the  lump  in  his  throat. 


54o  THE  DELIVERANCE 

Jim  reached  out  and  laid  his  hand  on  the  broad 
stripes  across  the  other's  shoulder. 

"She  was  with  Mr.  Tucker  when  he  said  that," 

he  replied;   "they  are  always  together  now;  and  she 

•■■  added:  Tell  him  we  shall  wait  together  till  he  comes." 

The  tears  which  had  blinded  Christopher's  eyes 
fell  down  upon  his  clasped  hands. 

"My  God  !  Let  me  live  to  go  back  ! "  he  cried  out 
in  his  weakness. 

From  this  time  the  element  of  hope  entered  into 
his  life,  and  like  its  shadow  there  came  the  brooding 
fear  that  he  should  not  live  to  see  the  year  of  his 
release.  With  his  declining  health  he  had  been  given 
lighter  work  in  the  prison  factory,  but  the  small 
tasks  seemed  to  him  heavier  than  the  large  ones  he 
remembered.  There  was  no  disease,  the  physician 
in  the  hospital  assured  him:  it  was  only  his  unusual 
form  of  homesickness  feeding  upon  his  weakened 
frame.  Let  him  return  once  more  to  the  outdoor 
life  and  the  fresh  air  of  the  tobacco  fields  and  within 
six  months  his  old  physical  hardihood  would  revive. 

It  was  noticeable  at  this  time  that  the  quiet 
tolerance  which  had  grown  upon  him  in  his  convales- 
cence drew  to  him  the  sympathy  which  he  had  at 
first  repulsed.  The  interest  awakened  in  the  begin- 
ning by  some  rare  force  of  attraction  in  his  mere 
bodily  presence  became  now,  when  he  had  fallen 
away  to  what  seemed  the  shadow  of  himself,  a 
friendly  and  almost  affectionate  curiosity  concerning 
his  earlier  history.  With  this  there  grew  slowly  a 
rough  companionship  between  him  and  the  men 
among  whom  he  lived,  and  he  found  presently  to 
his  surprise  that  there  was  hardly  one  of  them  but 


THE  WHEEL  OF  LIFE  541 

had  some  soft  spot  in  his  character — some-  particular 
virtue  which  was  still  alive.  The  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil  thrust  upon  him  in  these  months  was  not 
without  effect  in  developing  a  certain  largeness  of 
outlook  upon  humanity — a  kind  of  generous  phi- 
losophy which  remained  with  him  afterward  in  the 
form  of  a  peculiar  mellowness  of  temperament. 

The  autumn  of  his  third  year  was  already  closing 
when,  being  sent  for  one  morning  from  the  office  of 
the  superintendent,  he  went  in  to  find  Cynthia 
awaiting  him  with  his  pardon  in  her  hand.  "I've 
come  for  you,  Christopher,"  she  said,  weeping  at 
sight  of  his  wasted  figure.  "The  whole  county  has 
been  working  to  get  you  out,  and  you  are  free  at 
last." 

"Free  at  last?"  he  repeated  mechanically,  and 
was  conscious  of  a  disappointment  in  the  fact  that  he 
experienced  no  elation  with  the  words.  What  was 
this  freedom,  that  had  meant  so  much  to  him  a 
month  ago? 

"Somebody  in  Europe  wrote  back  to  Maria," 
she  added,  while  her  dry  sobs  rattled  in  her  bosom, 
"that  the  boy  had  confessed  it  to  a  priest  who  made 
him  write  it  home.  Oh,  Christopher !  Christopher  ! 
I  can't  understand  ! " 

"No,  you  can't  understand,"  returned  Christopher, 
shaking  his  head.  They  would  not  understand,  he 
knew,  none  of  them — neither  the  world,  nor  Cynthia, 
nor  his  mother  who  was  dead,  nor  Maria  who  was 
living.  They  would  not  understand,  and  even  to 
himself  the  mystery  was  still  unsolved.  He  had 
acted  according  to  the  law  of  his  own  nature;  this 
was  all  that  was  clear  to  him;   and  the  destiny  of 


542  THE  DELIVERANCE 

character  had  controlled  him  from  the  beginning. 
The  wheel  had  turned  and  he  with  it,  and  being  as 
blind  as  fate  itself  he  could  see  nothing  further. 

Back  once  more  in  the  familiar  country,  fresh 
'  from  the  strong  grasp  of  friendly  hands,  and  driving 
at  sunset  along  the  red  road  beneath  half-bared 
honey-locusts,  he  was  conscious,  with  a  dull  throb 
of  regret,  that  the  placid  contentment  he  felt  creeping 
over  him  failed  in  emotional  resemblance  to  the 
happiness  he  had  associated  with  his  return.  Had 
the  sap  really  gone  dry  within  him,  and  would  he  go 
on  forever  with  this  curious  numbness  at  his  heart  ? 

"Maria  wanted  you  to  go  straight  to  the  Hall," 
said  Cynthia,  turning  suddenly,  "but  I  told  her  I'd 
better  take  you  home  and  put  you  to  bed  at  once. 
It  was  she  who  went  to  the  Governor  and  got  your 
pardon,"  she  added  after  a  moment,  "but  when  I 
begged  her  to  come  with  me  to  take  it  to  you  she 
would  not  do  it.  She  would  not  see  you  until  you 
were  back  in  your  own  place,  she  said." 

He  smiled  faintly,  and,  leaning  back  among  the 
rugs  Cynthia  had  brought,  watched  the  white  mist 
creeping  over  the  ploughed  fields.  The  thought  of 
Maria  no  longer  stirred  his  pulses,  and  when  presently 
they  reached  the  whitewashed  cottage,  and  he  sat 
with  Tucker  before  the  wood  fire  in  his  mother's 
parlour,  he  found  himself  gazing  with  a  dull  imper- 
sonal curiosity  at  the  portraits  smiling  so  coldly 
down  upon  the  hearth.  The  memory  of  his  mother 
left  him  as  immovable  as  did  the  many  trivial  associa- 
tions which  thronged  through  his  brain  at  sight  of 
the  room  which  had  been  hers.  A  little  later,  lying 
in   her  tester  bed,   the   fall   of  the   acorns   on  the 


THE  WHEEL  OF  LIFE  543 

shingled  roof  above  sent  him  into  a  profound  and 
untroubled  sleep. 

With  the  first  sunlight  he  awoke,  and,  noiselessly 
slipping  into  his  clothes,  went  out  for  a  daylight 
view  of  the  country  which  had  dwelt  for  so  long  a 
happy  vision  in  his  thoughts.  The  dew  was  thick 
on  the  grass,  and,  crossing  to  the  old  bench,  he  sat 
down  in  the  pale  sunshine  beside  the  damask  rose- 
bush, on  which  a  single  flower  blossomed  out  of  season. 
Beyond  the  cedars  in  the  graveyard  the  sunrise  flamed 
golden  upon  a  violet  background,  and  across  the  field 
of  life-everlasting  there  ran  a  sparkling  path  of  fire. 
The  air  was  strong  with  autumn  scents,  and  as  he 
drank  it  in  with  deep  drafts  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  began  to  breathe  anew  the  spirit  of  life.  With  a 
single  bound  of  the  heart  the  sense  of  freedom  came 
to  him,  and  with  it  the  happiness  that  he  had  missed 
the  evening  before  pulsed  through  his  veins.  Much 
yet  remained  to  him — the  earth  with  its  untold 
miracles,  the  sky  with  its  infinity  of  space,  his  own 
soul — and   Maria  ! 

With  her  name  he  sprang  to  his  feet  in  the  ardour 
of  his  impatience,  and  it  was  then  that,  looking  up,  he 
saw  her  coming  to  him  across  the  sunbeams. 


This  book  is  due  at  the  WALTER  R.  DAVIS  LIBRARY  on 
the  last  date  stamped  under  "Date  Due."  If  not  on  hold  it 
may  be  renewed  by  bringing  it  to  the  library. 

DATE                           RET 
DUE                            RET- 

DATE 

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